THE 



FREEDOM OF THE WILL 



AS A BASIS OP 



HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY AND A DIVINE GOVERNMENT 



ELUCIDATED AND MAINTAINED IN ITS ISSUE 
WITH THE NECESSITARIAN THEOKIES 



HOBBES, EDWARDS, THE PRINCETON ESSAYISTS, AND OTHER 
LEADING ADVOCATES. 



By D. D. W HE DON, D.D. 



'Ovde rig rjv tolc oirovdaioig eiratvor aperyg, ovde rig 6eo(j)iXia, ovde 
T(jv ev a(JK,f}G£L novov napirbc E7rdi;to(;, avdy/cr/c ^al elfzapftivTjg rrjv acrfav 
tt&vtuv dvadedeyfievrjg. — Eusebius, Prep. Evang., lib. 6. 

Qui introducunt causarum seriem sempiternam, ii mentem hominis 
voluntate libera spoliatam necessitate fati devinciunt.— Cicero de Fato. 



. 



THIRD EDITION. 




PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 

200 MULBEKEY-STKEET. 
1864. 



>?J 



•*> 



i* 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 
CARLTON & PORTER, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 



/*rs~ 



PREFACE. /X ^ 



Any substantial contribution to the most difficult of all 
psychological and moral problems, the reconciliation of the 
sense of Responsibility with our intellectual conclusions 
regarding the nature of Choice, must be a service to a true 
psychology, a consistent theology, and a rational piety. It can 
hardly be expected that any single mind will at the present 
time so solve this problem, even with all the aids his prede- 
cessors in the discussion afford, as to leave nothing to his 
successors to elucidate. Yet the present writer would not offer 
this treatise to the public did he not believe that even to so 
ancient a debate he had furnished some new thoughts, and 
brought the difficulty nearer to a solution. 

Upon such a subject it is a matter of course that, agreeing or 
disagreeing, a writer would have something to say of President 
Edwards. Disagreeing with him fundamentally, the present 
writer has taken an unequivocal but respectful issue with that 
great thinker. Whether he has not demonstrated forever the 
existence of a number of undeniable fallacies in the " Inquiry " 
on the Will, fallacies that vitiate its most important conclu- 
sions, it is for the reader to judge. 

The method of Edwards was first to institute a psychological 
and logical investigation of the operations of the volitional fac- 
ulty demonstrating its necessity in action, and then to bring 
the moral intuitions into accordance with the intellective con- 



4 PREFACE. 

elusions. His apparent success in the first part was signal, but 
not half so signal as his failure in the second. That an Edwards 
should have so failed by that route is a justification of a despair 
of any possible success. We have in a measure reversed the 
method. We have first assumed . the prior validity of the 
intuitions, and then sought by their guidance to ascertain how 
our psychology and logic may be brought into harmony with 
their dicta. It is for others to decide how satisfactory the 
reconciliation. 

In acuteness the intellect of Edwards has scarcely been sur- 
passed. No cause, perhaps, ever had a keener advocate. Advo- 
cate, we say; for the intellect of Edwards was not, we venture 
to suggest, like that of Bacon, judicial, hut forensic. He was not 
the Chancellor in the high court *f thought, but the Attorney. 
He was born to his case ; he accepted it as of course ; his mind 
was shaped by and to it ; and if his philosophy and theology 
are not triumphant, it is not, we repeat, for the want of about 
the acutest advocate that ever framed a special plea. 

If there is a class of thinkers who are perfectly satisfied with 
the Edwardean method of reconciliation, or who see not the 
discord to be reconciled, or who find a moral advantage in 
holding both sides of the contradiction, this work can scarcely 
be considered as written for them. It is rather dedicated to 
the acceptance of those who feel the discord, and seek a more 
satisfactory harmony ; of those who recognize the discord as 
absolute, and reject the doctrine of responsibility; but espe- 
cially of those who, called to the sacred office of explaining 
and impressing the law of accountability upon the conscience, 
appreciate the necessity of making it acceptable to the reason. 



CONTENTS, 



PART FIRST. 

THE ISSUE STATED. 



CHAPTER I, 

Will Isolated and Defined. . 13 

Trine division of faculties. 
Will defined and distinguished. 
Mental operations denned. 
Pre- and post-volitional action. 
Agent wills, not the faculty. 

CHAPTER H. 
Freedom of the Will Defined. 23 

Mechanical, voluntary, and voli- 
tional freedoms. 

Three necessitarian definitions. 

Law of Invariability. 

The Issue. 

Coaction or compulsion and neces- 
sitation. 

Freedom not purely in ethicals. 

Deed and guilt untransferable. 

CHAPTER HI. 

Volition not always preceded 
by Emotion 43 

Doctrine of Locke, Mackintosh, 

and Upham. 
Seven opposing arguments. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Freedom of the Will Causa- 
tionally presented 47 

Cause, power, and necessity defined. 
Necessity one in diverse relations. 
Five errors regarding power. 



Postulates and canons. 
Certainty analyzed. 

CHAPTER V. 
Edwards's Synthesis of Defi- 



nitions reviewed . 



59 



Four defects of his synthesis. 
Assumes the point at start. 



CHAPTER VI. 
Conditions and Limitations of 



Will's Free Action. 



68 

Cause and condition distinguished. 
Conditions of volition — three. 
Subjective and objective freedom. 
Motive, cause, reason. 

CHAPTER VH. 

Anterior Standard of Accord- 
ance 75 

Choosing "as" — something. 

Freedomistic and necessitarian 
phrases. 

Choice as last dictate of under- 
standing. 

" Making up of mind." 

Law and lawlessness. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Schematism of Conscious Free 
Will 81 

Sevenpoints of conscious Free Will . 
The Issue and Argument: 



CONTENTS. 

PART SECOND. 

THE NECESSITARIAN AEGUMENT CONSIDERED. 



SECTION I. 

THE CAUSATIONAL ARGUMENT. 



CHAPTEE I. 

The Necessitarian Paralogism 84 
Eeal necessitarian causal assump- 
tion. 
Attempts at proof— paralogisms. 
The great paralogism. 

CHAPTER II. 
Cause of Particular Volition. 88 

I. What causes Will to act ? 

II. Cause of particular volition. 

III. Why not the counter volition ? 
Causes, partial and complete. 
Hobbes on sufficient cause. 
Edwards on dependence upon 

cause. 

IV. What cause of diversity ? 
Edwards on necessity of effect. 
Leibnitz on " sufficient reason." 

CHAPTER III. 
Boundary Lines of the Un- 
known 104 

Balance of difficulties. 



Divorce of intelligence from Will. 
Relations of power and thought. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Freedom involves not Atheism lot 

Atheists always necessitarian. 
Ereedomism requires theism. 
Charge of holding causeless event. 
Area of effectuation. 



CHAPTER V. 
What is the Use ? 



113 



Four answers to question of Use. 
Baconian philosophy. 

CHAPTER VI. 

That Alternativitt is Chance. 

116 

Five answers on the point. 
Personification of contingency. 
Necessity, contingency, free- 
agency. 



SECTION II. 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 



CHAPTER I. 

Self-Determination. Infinite 
Series 121 

Two meanings and two answers. 
Edwards on " evasions." 
Arguments of Younger Edwards. 

CHAPTER II. 

Nature of Motive Influences. 128 

Definition of " strongest motive." 
Doctrine of contingencies. 
Distributive freedom, collective ne- 
cessity. 



Effect as measure of cause. 

Consequent view of events. 

Answers to ten necessitarian ar- 
guments. 

Prayers — Arminian and predes- 
tinarian. 

CHAPTER III. 

commensur ability of motives. 
Volition as Greatest 
Good 145 

Two classes — Commensurables and 
Incommensurables . 

Prevalence not sole proof of Me- 
chanical Causation. 



CONTENTS. 



Prevalence not sole proof of Intel- 
lective Causation. 

Greatest apparent good not always 
prevalent. 

Nor strongest desire. 

Paralogism — strongest because 
prevalent. 

Leibnitz on spontaneity. 

"Making up of mind" terminally 
volitional. 

CHAPTEE IV. 
Motives no Neoessitative Cause 
of Volition 155 

Necessitarian assumptions an- 
swered : 
X. Acting in accordance is being 
caused to act. 

II. Motives are cay^es necessita- 
ting volition. 

III. The argument by pseudo- 
synonyms. 

IV. The argument from approx- 
imation. 

V. Exemption from necessitation 

is idiotic in action. 

VI. The sum of contradictions. 



CHAPTEE V. 
Uniformities of Volition. 



164 



Volitions reliably uniform. 

Four generic causes of uniformity : 

1. Corporeal Nature. 

2. Dispositions. 

3. Standard Purposes. 

4. Habits. 
Formation of character: 

1. Will, circumscribed within 

thought-circle. 

2. Action from antecedent char- 

acter. 

3. Character as sum of voli- 

tions. 

4. The statistical argument. 

CHAPTEE VI. 
Double Volition 177 

"Will makes the motive." 
Motive-object and choice-object. 
Edwards on double volition. 



CHAPTEE VH. 
Activity no Passivity 



. 179 

Edwards's doctrine no agent not a 

patient. 
Agent uncaused to act. 



Act depends on actor. 
Choice not put forth by choice. 
Act on account of motive not gov- 
erned by motive. 

CHAPTEE VIII. 
Determination from Indeterm- 
ination 182 

Indifference is equilibrial will. 
Edwards's four assumptions sev- 
erally answered : 

1. Indifference is stagnation. 

2. Indifference — total not partial. 

3. Volition produced by previous 

act. 

4. Indifference and action must 

coexist. 

CHAPTEE IX. 
Choice between Equal Al- 
ternatives 190 

Volitional act without motive. 
Three necessitarian fallacies. 
Volitional suspension. 
Archbishop King's theory. 

CHAPTEE X. 
Equality of Divine Motives. 194 

Argument from pure space and 

time. 
Edwards's four points : 

I. C onfounding resemblance with 

identity. 

II. Eeduces time and space to 

conditions of body. 

III. Confounds qualities with 
bodies. 

IV. False analogy between body 
and sound. 

CHAPTEE XI. 

Useless Modifications of Ne- 
cessity 203 

Question of Eesponsibility unaf- 
fected by, 1. The Source; 2. 
The Mode ; 3. The Point ; or, 
4. The Eesult. 

I. Theory of Eesponsible Neces- 

sitated Nature. 

II. Of Eesponsible Necessitated 
Action. 

III. That volition and freedom 
are one. 

IV. Volition intrinsically neces- 
sary, but not causatively. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Invariable Sequences or Spon- 
taneous Necessity. 214 

Hume and Brown's Theory of In- 
variable Sequence. 

I. Invariability including all 

events volitional or not. 
Five counter arguments.^ 
Kant's freedomisni examined. 

II. Volitional invariability with 
counter power. 

Seven counter arguments. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Counter Choice a Prodigy. . 238 
A crude freedomism. 
Tends to Pelagianism. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Volitional Powerlessness or 
44 Moral Inability " 239 

Volitional non-causality and obli- 
gation. 

Three self-contradictions. 

No "moral ability" no "natural 
ability." 

CHAPTER XV. 

44 Moral Ability " as treated 
by Edwards 244 

Edwards's four points of moral in- 
ability. 



His instances of moral inability. 

The terms false and deceptive. 

His two evasions: 1. That moral 
inability is no inability ; 2. That 
the term inability is solely post- 
volitional. 

Natural ability a substitute for 
moral ability. 

The latter causeless in absence of 
the former. 

Sin can never be helped. 

Edwards's triple error. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

44 Moral Ability" as Homilet- 



ICALLY TREATED. 



258 



Want of act not want of power. 
Three pulpit equivocations. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

44 Moral Inability" as expressed 
in Ordinary Phrase 261 

Cannot for "Will-not. 

Fallacious ground of moral ina- 
bility. 

True ground — law of contradiction. 

Instances in common life and in 
Scripture. 



SECTION III. 

THE THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 



CHAPTER I. 
Foreknowledge and Predes- 
tination 267 

Prescience and Predestination dis- 
tinct. 

Prescience precedes decree. 

44 Permissive decrees" contradicted 
by formula of foreordination. 

Argument for precedence of prede- 
termination. 

Seven counter-points presented. 

CHAPTER II. 
Reconciliation oe Free Agency 
and Foreknowledge 271 

I, Foreknowledge of power in 
agent. 



II. Denial of possibility of fore- 
knowledge. 

III. Of several possible volitions, 
one actual. 

IV. The free totality foreknown. 

V. Freeness not affected by fore- 

knowledge. 

VI. The free act foreknown as free. 

CHAPTER III. 

Edwards's Argument for Neces- 
sity from Foreknowledge 283 

VII. Edwards's great argument. 
VEIL Edwards's minor arguments 

—Three. 

IX. Prescience effect of event as 
cause. 

X. God above conditions of time. 



CONTENTS. 



9 



XI. The individual as affected by- 
Predestination Or Prescience. 



CHAPTER IV. 
Predestination an Unneces- 
sary Hypothesis 293 

Predetermination limited to God's 
own acts. 

Supposed human prince. 

Birth not fatalistic. 

Four modes of divine dispensation. 

Three instances: Pharaoh, Nebu- 
chadnezzar, and the Crucifix- 
ion. 

Greatness of this divine Sover- 
eignty. 

CHAPTER V. 
Christ not a Necessitated, 
but a Free Moral Agent. 301 

Edwards's grounds. 

''Liability to sin." 

Power to sin no imperfection. 

Jesus under probation? 

Five proofs of Christ's freedom. 

Edwards's two theses. 

Prophecy and conditionality of 

promises. 
Christ's own testimony. 



CHAPTER VI. 

NON-NECESSITATION OF THE Dl- 

vineWill 312 

Necessitarian degradation of God. 
Arminian concessions — examined. 
Necessitarian position. 
Eternal divine free volitivity. 
Hitchcock on necessity of miracles, 
Day on security of God's rectitude. 

CHAPTER VII. 
Freedom: limits not Omnipo- 
tence 318 

Omnipotence and contradictions. 

Necessitation and free-will contra- 
dictory. 

Kingdom of nature and govern- 
ment. 

Possibility of preventing all sin. 

Divine relations to sin. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Freedom exalts Man and dis- 
honors God ? 322 

Freedom an imperfection or per- 
fection ? 

Effect of freedom on man and God. 

Unireedom degrades God. 

God's dependence on the finite. 

Freedom and merit in our justifi- 
cation. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Responsibility of Obdtjrates 
and of Fallen Man 327 

I. As to Obdurates — two questions : 

1. Self-superinduction — its in- 

culpatory power. 

2. Intensity of temptation — its 

excusatory power. 
H. As to Fallen Race — three posi- 
tions of Edwards. 
Our replies. 
11 Damned by grace." 

CHAPTER X. 
The Free Appropriation of 
our Depraved Nature . . . 338 

Julius Miiller's difficulties. 
Childhood probational crisis. 
Individual freedom and collective 



Discriminations of guilt and guilt- 
lessness. 
Nature of our fallen inability. 

CHAPTER XL 
Equation of Probational Ad- 
vantages 343 

Dr. Hill and historical reprobation. 

Arminian statement of equation. 

I. The Irresponsible Home Dis- 
pensation. 

H. Heathendom. 
Grades of reward and punish- 
ment. 

1. Spirit of faith. 

2. Purpose of right. 

" Living up to their light." 
Relation of missions to the sub- 
ject. 

Concluding statement of the argu- 
ment. 



10 



CONTENTS. 



PART THIRD. 

THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. 



CHAPTEE I. 
The Argument from Con- 
sciousness 361 

I. Consciousness. 

Cognizant of operations alone? 

Eeplies. 
Freedom as a conscious quality. 
Consciousness of object. 

II. Self-Consciousness. 

Direct view of self and its powers. 

III. Sub-Consciousness. 

Moral assumption of counter 

power. 
Four points in the assumption. 
Intellective sub-consciousness of 

the counter power. 

CHAPTER II. 
Argument from Possibility of 
Divine Command 369 

Counter power a nothing? Conse- 
quences. 

Edwards on command of necessi- 
tated Will. 

His absurd mode of necessity. 

Power to change inclination. 

Coexistent mental operations. 

CHAPTEE III. 
Distinction between Auto- 
matic Excellence and 
Moral Desert 375 

No automatic desert — in mechani- 
cal, animal, or spiritual natures. 

Various instances and conclusions. 

Three Corollaries — Machine, Fatal- 
ism, and Expedient Infliction. 

CHAPTEE IV. 
Created Moral Desert Impos- 
sible 389 



Double offi.ce of law. 

Freedom to good alone,to evil alone. 

Edwards's fallacious replies to Dr. 
John Taylor. 

Edwards's three arguments an- 
swered. 



CHAPTEE V. 
The Maxim of Eesponsibility. 396 

Opposite maxims. 
Our maxim stated. 
Intuitive validity of the axiom. 
Self-superinduction only an appar- 
ent exception. 

CHAPTEE VI. 
Necessitarian Counter Max- 
im of Eesponsibility Con- 
sidered 402 

Necessitarian maxim, and pseudo- 
Arminian maxim. 

I. Mistake of issue by Edwards. 

II. Misstatement of Arminian view. 

III. The true question and answer. 

IV. Consequences of necessitarian 
maxim. 

V. Edwards's self-contradiction. 

CHAPTEE VII. 
Edwards's direct Intuitional 
Proof of Necessitated 
Eesponsibility 408 

"Vulgar notion of blameworthi- 
ness." 

I. "Will — but not necessitated 

Will" — is responsible. 

II. Edwards's exclusion of " com- 
mon sense." 

III. Freedom where responsibility. 

IV. Excuse from force of motive. 

V. Edwards's test cases. 

Kant's formula and Miiller's an- 
swer. 
Eejoinder to Miiller. 

CHAPTEE VIII. 
Eesponsibility of Belief dem- 
onstrates Freedom of 
Will 415 

Cahlmers on Belief and Will. 
Makes both equally necessitated. 
Therefore equally irresponsible. 
Eegeneration according to Owen 

and others. 
Volition and intellection equally 

necessitate. 



CONTENTS. 



11 



Freedom from violation of neces- 
sity. 

Volition free as a mathematical 
figure. 

CHAPTEK IX. 

Coaction and Necessitation. 423 

Both, equally exclude power. 
Both equally destroy responsibility. 
Fallacious instance. 
Instance by Chalmers examined. 

CHAPTER X. 

Argument from God's Non- 
authorship of Sin 427 

Theory of non-prevention and ne- 

cessitation. 
I. Edwards maintains the former, 

defends the latter. 



Contrast between the two. 

II. Edwards's Scripture argument. 

III. Edwards on privative and pos- 
itive causations. 

IY. Edwards on "willing sin as 
sin." 

V. Willing evil for good end. 

VI. Intrinsic evil not transmutable. 
Edwards's trilemma answered. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Freedom the Condition of a 
possible Theodicy 436 

An automatic Deitv, creature, and 

system of volitions. 
Automatism and desert. 
Moral intuition of justice. 
No divine government or man a 

free agent. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS MENTIONED. 



Adams, Dr. N., 209. 
Arminius, 268. 

Baader, 340. 

Bibliotheca Sacra, 21, 38, 79, 206, 

221, 227, 228, 261. 
Bledsoe, Professor, 121, 389, 434. 
Bonar, Dr., 230. 
Bramhall, Bishop, 25. 
Brougham, Lord, 374. 
Brown, Dr. T., 214. 
Bushnell, Dr., 248. 
Bitler, Bishop, 116,153. 

Calvin, John, 421. 

Chalmers, Dr., 153, 327, 402, 415, 

425. 
Chubb, 178. 

Clarke, Dr. Samuel, 78, 194, 202, 313. 
Coleridge, 15. 
Cousin, 109. 
Cunningham, Dr., 212. 
Curcellseus, 344. 

Day. Dr., 82, 89, 317, 381. 
De Quincy, 374. 



Edwards, Elder, passim. 
Edwards, Younger, 22, 73, 100, 127, 

141, 315, 388. 
Emmons, 204. 
Epicurus, 108. 
Episcopius, 301. 

Eiske, 228, 269. 

Eletcher, 30, 38, 207, 304, 314. 

Hamilton, Sir William, 105, 138, 

365, 420. 
Haven, Professor, 34, 36, 52, 8C. 
Hemans, Mrs., 161. 
Hickok, Professor, 200. 
Hill, Dr., 327, 343. 
Hitchcock, Dr., 206, 317. 
Hobbes, 28, 31, 33, 95. 
Hodge, Dr., 212, 419. 
Horace, 149. 
Hume, 108, 133, 214. 
Hutcheson, 395. 

Justin Martyr, 78. 

Karnes, 110. 
Kant, 218, 340, 414. 



12 



INDEX OF AUTHORS MENTIONED. 



Laurence, Professor, 27, 38, 79. 

Leibnitz, 102, 114, 153, 215. 

Lewes, G. H., 110. 

Locke, 43, 191. 

Lucretius, 108. 

Lyall, Professor, 204, 212, 233. 

Mackintosh, 44. 

Mahan, President, 150. 

Maine de Biran, 109. 

M'Cosh, 114, 399. 

Methodist Quarterly Review, 337. 

Mill, 69, 215. 

Miiller, Dr. Julius, 173,338,344,414. 

Origen, 78, 287. 

Owen, Dr. John, 418, 421. 

Park, Professor, 221, 227. 
Pascal 434 

Pond, 'Dr., *21, 78, 204, 206, 261. 
Princeton Essays, 26, 27, 96, 101, 

115, 116, 153, 171, 183, 210, 230, 

361, 373. 
Prodicus, 155. 



Reid, Dr., 56. 

Shedd, Dr., 205. 
South, Dr., 18. 
Spinoza, 108. 
Stuart, Dugald, 110, 420. 

Tappan, Dr., 90. 
Taylor, Isaac, 119. 
Taylor, Dr. John, 132, 391. 
Taylor, Dr. N. W., 204. 

Upham, Professor, 44. 

Voltaire, 30. 

Wardlaw, Dr., 259. 

Wesley. 132, 420. 

West, Dr., 28, 127, 128, 141. 

Whichcote, 42, 322. 

Whitby, 78, 313, 330, 335, 432 

Zoroaster, 316. 



EDITIONS QUOTED. 

Edwards on the Will. Pp. 430. Andover, 1840. 
Younger Edwards. Vol. ii, pp. 518. Andover, 1842. 
Leibnitz, Erdman's. 8vo., pp. 808. Berlin, 1840. 
Princeton Theological Essays, (articles republished from the Princeton 
Review.) Vol. ii, pp. 705^ New York, (Wiley & Putnam,) 1846. 



THE EEEEDOM OF THE WILL. 



♦ ♦• 



PART FIRST. 
THE ISSUE STATED. 



CHAPTER I. 

WILL ISOLATED AND DEFINED. 

In* the following treatise we assume as correct the 
ordinary generic classification of the operations Faculties 
of the human mind into Intellections, Sensibil- threefold - 
ities, and Volitions. The Intellect is that by which all 
things, material or immaterial, external or internal, moral 
or unethical, are cognized by the soul. The Sensibility is 
the capability of the mind of experiencing the feelings, 
namely, the emotions by which the mind is excited, or the 
desires by which it becomes appetent of objects. The 
Will is the volitional power by which alone the soul con- 
sciously becomes the intentional author of external ac- 
tion — external, that is, to the Will itself— whether of 
mind or body. 

All the operations of the first two of these faculties, 
namely, Intellect and Sensibility, are univers- Necessity ^ 
ally felt, and acknowledged to be necessary and two first - 
absolutely caused. Present the object before the per- 
ceptive power, (the power being voluntarily or necessarily 
fixed,) and the object must be perceived as it presents 
itself. As when we place the object before a fixed mir- 



14 THE ISSUE STATED. 

ror, the mirror forthwith presents the correspondent 
image, so when we place the object before the fixed in- 
telligence, the intelligence forthwith presents the per- 
ception. We may withdraw either the object or the 
mind ; but when the two are brought into the proper jux- 
taposition the perception necessarily exists, just as it does 
exist. The Carthagenian, with his eyelids severed, could 
not but see the blazing orb of the sun to which his naked 
balls were forcibly exposed. Neither the sensorium nor 
the mind can vary or reject the sensation produced by 
the presentation. There are the absolute absence and 
non-existence of any alternative or contrary power either 
in the intellective or sensitive nature. No physical caus- 
ation is more absolute than that which exists between 
the object and its mental results. 

It is when penetrating more deeply we arrive at the 
Necessity Will — the mysterious seat of the volitional and 
the third, responsible power — that the difficulty and con- 
troversy arise. The necessitarian affirms that between 
the motive and volition there exists the same absolute 
causation as between the object and the perception; 
a causation equivalent, therefore, in absoluteness and 
necessity, with any instance of physical causation. As 
when you place an externality before the mind the idea 
arises, as when you place an object before a mirror the 
image necessarily arises, so when you present before the 
Will the motive, the volition as necessarily springs forth. 
Contrary power, varying power, alternative power, free- 
dom, are wholly non-existent and even inconceivable. 
Now no causation, however physical or mechanical, can 
be more absolute than where the power of a diverse 
result is inconceivable. « 

Denied by ^ ne freedomist, on the other hand, maintains 
freedomists. that in "Will— alone of all existences— there is an 
alternative power. Every species of existence has its 
own one and singular property. Matter alone has solid- 
ity; mind alone has intelligence; cause alone has ef- 



WILL ISOLATED AND DEFINED. 15 

ficiency, and Will alone of causes has an alternative or 
pluri-efficient power.- It is the existence or non-existence 
of this power in Will which constitutes the dispute be- 
tween the necessitarian and the freedomist. 

From what has been said above we might define Will 
to be that faculty of the mind in whose exer- Definition of 
cises there is not felt the element of necessity. wm * 
But this is a definition in which all parties might not agree. 

The definition of Edwards, that Will is " the power to 
choose," is on his own principle manifestly de- 
fective. It has the objection which Edwards 
brings against another definition, namely, that it needs 
definition as much as the term to be defined. Choose is 
a word as obscure as Will. In fact, if the definition be 
true, then to choose is to will/ and the definition is no 
more than saying that the Will is the power to will, which 
is about the same as defining a thing by itself. 

Nearer to an exact definition, yet not exact, is that of 
Coleridge, that " Will is that which originates 
action or state of being." It may, however, 
be truly said that all cause originates action or state of 
being, and some further limitation seems therefore nec- 
essary. We define Will to be that power of the soul by 
which it intentionally originates an act or state of being. 
Or more precisely, Will is the power of the soul Bypresent 
by which it is the conscious author of an in- wrlter - 
tentional act. And this definition furnishes a complete 
demonstration that the Will is a clearly different faculty 
from any other in the mind ; for it is always Peculiar dis 
distinguished and characterized by the inten- wul 
tion, and also, as we shall hereafter note, by motive. 
Volition, indeed, might be defined as that act of the 
mind which it performs with intention. 

Edwards and the older necessitarians held volition 
to be the same as desire, or at least to be in- F fi C S ation en of 
eluded generically under it. This assumption ^• 1 e 1 I andde " 
would settle the question of necessity, inasmuch as it 



16 THE ISSUE STATED. 

is by all conceded that desires are in nature necessary; 
while, on the other hand, modern concession of the differ- 
ence of the two is no surrender of the necessity of Will. 

How indiscriminately the various terms belonging to 
classification ^ e different faculties were used by elder ne- 
of terms. cessitarians may appear from the following 
words of Edwards : "Whatever names we call the act of 
the Will by — choosing, refusing, approving, disapproving, 
liking, disliking, embracing, rejecting, determining, di- 
recting, commanding, forbidding, inclining, or being 
averse, a being pleased or displeased with — all may be re- 
duced to this of choosing." Now, of the above terms, 
in order to a greater precision, we may say, 1. Approv- 
ing, disapproving, coming to a conclusion and deciding, 
belong more properly to the intellective or moral faculty; 
2. Liking, disliking, inclining, being averse, being pleased 
with or displeased with, to the sensitive nature; 3. Choos- 
ing, refusing, rejecting, determining, sometimes deciding, 
to the Will ; 4. Embracing, directing, commanding, and 
forbidding, to external acts. 

Desire, be it ever so intense, never becomes volition, 
but by a distinct movement known to consciousness ; and 
no action can follow until volition arises. Desire is un- 
easy and stimulant ; Will is decisive, and brings all the 
mind to acquiescence. Yet volition, like desire, is ap- 
petency and preference ; it is a conscious free act of fixing 
a settlement upon its object, to which it brings the unity 
of the man. 

Will may be distinguished from desire by the follow- 
wm distinct m S points: 1. Volition is consciously distinct 
from desire. ^ n na ^ ure from even the culminating desire. It 
is felt to be an act — a decisive movement — a putting forth 
of energy. It is a conscious projection, from interior 
power, of action upon its object. Desire is the flowing 
forth of appetency for an object; volition is the putting 
forth of action upon it. 2. Volition and desire differ in 
their objects. Desire is an appetency for some perceived 



WILL ISOLATED AND DEFINED. 17 

agreeable quality or agreeable thing in its object. The 
object of the volition is the post-volitional voluntary act 
which it effectuates. 3. We can conceive a being full of 
coexisting and . contending desires and emotions, but 
without any power of volition, and so hemmed for- 
ever into a circle of passivities. 4. To volition, and not 
to any other mental operation, belong, as before said, 
intention and motive. This peculiarity alone would be 
sufficient to distinguish volition as a unique operation 
and Will as a special faculty. 5. There is no mental 
faculty which our consciousness so identifies with the 
self as the Will. When the Will governs the appetites 
or passions, we naturally say that the Man governs them ; 
when they govern the Will, we say the man is governed 
by them. 6. The Will is alone that power by which 
man becomes properly an agent in the world. It is the 
bridge over which he passes in his active power to pro- 
duce effects, according to design, on objects around him. 
No matter how intense or powerful may be his other 
feelings or faculties, he could never execute any projects, 
shape any objects, or make any history which he could 
call intentionally his own, without the faculty of Will. 
7. Upon Will alone primarily rests from above the 
weight of moral obligation. And surely if, of all pos- 
sible events, volition alone can be the primary ob- 
ject of obligation, it ceases to be an arrogant or wonder- 
ful claim that in volition alone should exist the ele- 
ment of freedom. The necessitarian allows that in one 
respect at any rate the event volition is absolutely 
unique ; it is sole and singular among things ; the free- 
domist, consequently, only claims for that unique super- 
structure, responsibility, an equivalently unique basis, free- 
dom. 8. It is a fact that, while among all thinkers there 
is a perfect unanimity in attributing necessity to all the 
other mental operations, there is, to say the least, a very ex- 
tensive and perpetuated denial of necessity in the volition. 
The necessitarian is bound to account for both this una- 

2 



18 THE ISSUE STATED. 

nimity and this dissent. Here, then, is a distinction per- 
manent and extensive between desire and volition. The 
desire is a mental operation to which all thinkers with 
perfect unanimity ascribe necessity; the volitions are a 
mental operation in which all denier s of necessity affirm 
with an equal unanimity that freedom resides. 

Inclination belongs to the feelings, and not so 
properly either to the intellect or the Will. From his 
perception of an object a man feels inclined to choose it. 
It is the feelings that incline, and the Will remains quies- 
cent until the initiation of the choice. "A mere inclina- 
tion to a thing," says Dr. South, "is not properly a 
willing of that thing." 

The dispositions are the feelings viewed in relation 
to any particular object or volition. A man is said to be 
disposed to an object or act when his feelings are favor- 
able to it ; indisposed when they are the reverse. 

A choice is always a volition, but of a particular 
kind. It is, namely, a volition by which the agent ap- 
propriates to himself one of a class of objects or causes 
of action on account of some perceived comparative pref- 
erability in it. I choose, that is, appropriate to myself, one 
of a lot of apples, because I see it comparatively most 
eligible or preferable. I choose one of two roads at a 
fork because I see it comparably the preferable. I choose 
from among professions that which seems comparatively 
most eligible. I choose God, not I will God. I choose 
virtue, not I will virtue. Choice, then, is an appropriative 
comparative volition; usually, however, including also 
the external act. By it I will one of several things to 
be mine. To say that I will as I choose, is simply to say 
that one volition is as another volition. Definitions which 
make a choice not to be a volition are incorrect. In 
this treatise choice and volition are used interchangeably. 

To please, as an intransitive, expresses a volition, and 
usually signifies to will authoritatively. So a deity or 
an autocrat pleases that a thing be thus or so, or he does 



WILL ISOLATED AND DEFINED. 19 

as he pleases. That is, he does as he authoritatively wills, 
chooses, or determines. 

To purpose is to will, to determine, predetermine, or 
resolve that something shall be willed or done at a fu- 
ture time. I now will or purpose to go to the city to-mor- 
row. A purpose wills or predetermines now that per- 
haps an immense number of volitions shall take place. A 
volition thus comprehensive of many volitions, to which 
they more or less conform, may be called a Standard 
Purpose. This comprehensive purpose resolves the 
mind into a state of permanent determination. A man 
may act in view of one great life purpose. 

The preference is a recognition by the intellect that 
a given object or course is, on some account, or upon the 
whole, rather to be chosen than, or held in some way su- 
perior to, another with which it is compared. When a 
man on some account intellectually prefers an object he 
generally has a feeling of inclination to choose it. Nev- 
ertheless there may be coexistent with this preference an 
opposing inclination on some other account, in favor of 
which the Will may decide. Opposite dispositions and de- 
sires may, and often do, coexist in the same mind. Differ- 
ent affections, operations, and forces may exist within the 
soul, and, at the same instant, fluctuate and struggle for 
mastery.* This agitation might last forever had man, 
as previously said, no faculty of Will. He would be like 
the troubled sea, that cannot rest. It is by volition that 
the faculties are brought to unity and settlement. 

Nevertheless to the Will also belongs a preferential state. 
When a volition has resolved the Will into a settled purpose 
that at the proper time it will give a particular volition, or 
adopt a certain cause or object, then so long the Will per- 
manently prefers that volition course or object to "a diverse. 

The term indifference was often used by the old 
writers on the freedom of the Will in a technical sense. 
In ordinary language it now refers to the feelings as 
* See p. 373. 



20 THE ISSUE STATED. 

being wholly without inclination for or against an object. 
But as in the feelings there may be no inclination, so 
in the Will there may be no volition ; and until the "Will 
chooses or differentiates, there is an indifference, non-dif- 
ferentiation, or quiescence. Whatever may be the co- 
existing and struggling or fluctuating inclinations and 
preferences? the Will does not differentiate or cease to be 
indifferent until it volitionates, chooses, or wills. 

Consequent upon the interior volitional act performed 
Distinction by the Will is the external voluntary act 

between the n, -i i j_i -i i i • t j.' 

volitional performed by the body, obeying and executing 

and volun- , . . , . . %-r . , 

tary. the imperative volition. Yet it is not the 

body and the limbs alone which obediently execute the 
determinations of the interior Self through the Will. The 
mind also in its operations, intellective and emotional, is 
more or less under the Will's control. To trace how 
complete this partial volitional control over body or 
mind is, is not our present purpose. 

The intention of an act, volitional or voluntary, object- 
ively, is the result had in view to be produced by the act. 
This result may be immediate, or more or less remote. 
Of the same act, the intentions may be stated with a 
great variety. Thus an archer draws his bow. His in- 
tention is the discharge of an arrow. That is, such is 
the immediate result imaged and intended in his mind. 
But, more remotely, his purpose is that the arrow pierce 
the body of a stag. Still further remote, there are other 
and other successive intentions; and it is difficult to 
ascertain, often, the ultimate intention of an act or voli- 
tion. For the intention, near, remote, and ultimate, 
whether accomplished or not, the agent is responsible. 
For all the legitimately calculable consequences, the 
agent is responsible. How far even for any consequences 
of a deliberately wicked act an agent may be responsible 
is debatable ; since he who breaks law is fairly warned 
by his own reason that he indorses disorder, and so makes 
any disastrous consequence legitimate and responsible. 



WILL ISOLATED AND DEFINED. 21 

Suppose, however, that, without any culpable Unintention . 
want of care, the arrow of the archer, missing al act * 
its aim, is so deflected by some object as to hit and slay 
his prince. At once it is seen no responsibility for the 
result accrues. He is irresponsible just because this re- 
sult was not intended; that is, framed in his conception as 
that which he, as a volitional agent, exerted his power to 
bring into existence. Though partially an effect by him 
caused, that result comes upon him as unconceivedly as 
a lightning flash darting across his path. For the con- 
ception unsanctioned by the volition, and for the result 
unconceived and unintended, yet accomplished, there is 
equally no responsibility. 

As the intellect, the emotions, and desires conditionally 
precede the volition, so we may call these the 0rder of op- 
prevolitional conditions. The act of body eratlons - 
or mind which follows as a consequent of the volition 
obeying its power and executing its requirements may 
therefore be called post-volitional; so that the position 
of the act of Will is with great precision identified. The 
willing act is adjectively called volitional; the conse- 
quent act of body or mind is called voluntary. When 
an athlete strikes a blow, his willing the blow is a voli- 
tional, and the physical motion of the arm which obeys 
and executes his volition is a voluntary act. So that we 
have the prevolitional, the volitional, and post-volitional 
or voluntary operations as the sum total of all human 
affections and activities. 

The occasional confounding of the terms volitional and 
voluntary, and the transfer of the latter from the post-vo- 
litional act to the volition itself, is the source of some 
error and some unintentional sophisms. Thus Confilsion of 
Dr. Pond, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, says : " If ^^fun. 
we originate our own voluntary exercises we tary * 
must do it voluntarily or involuntarily. If we do it in- 
voluntarily, there is nothing gained certainly on the score 
of freedom. There can be no freedom or voluntariness 



22 THE ISSUE STATED. 

in an involuntary act of origination more than there is in 
the beating of the heart. But if we originate our own 
voluntary exercises voluntarily, this is the same as 
saying that we originate one voluntary exercise by 
another, which runs into the same absurdity as before." 

Solution of ^ tn * s we ma 7 f° r tne present reply, that as 
the fallacy. ^ e terms voluntary and involuntary are predi- 
cable only of the external actions in reference to the Will, 
the volitions are neither voluntary nor involuntary, but 
volitional. They are not intrinsically, as free, the product 
of a previous volition ; nor in that does their freedom 
consist. What their freedom does imply appears in the 
proper place by our definition. 

The younger Edwards, in his remark on his father's 
" Improvements in Theology," has the expression, " such 
volitions being, by the very signification of the term it- 
self, voluntary." A voluntary volition is impossible. So 
on the same page he uses the term spontaneity, not, evi- 
dently, as Webster defines it, to signify voluntariness, 
but as the abstract of volition, volitionality. 
Agent wins, When we say that the Will wills, we really 

not the , i « i i ,> «n t • 

faculty. mean that the entire soul, or sell, wills. It is 
the man who wills, and his Will is simply his power or 
being able to will. And the free Will is really the man 
free in willing. So it is the man, the soul, the self, that 
perceives, feels, and thinks. The faculties are not so 
many divisions of the soul itself, but rather so many 
classes of the soul's operations, and the soul viewed as 
capable of being the subject of them. And as in voli- 
tion the whole soul is the Will, and in thinking the 
whole soul is the intellect, so it follows that the Will is 
intelligent, and the intelligence is volitional. When, 
therefore, we speak of Will, we speak not of a separate, 
blind, unintelligent agent, but of the whole intelligent 
soul engaged in and capable of volitional actions. It is 
in no way a separate substance or agent. 



FEEEDOM OF THE WILL DEFINED. 23 



CHAPTER II. 

FEEEDOM OF THE WILL DEFINED. 

Freedom is exemption. Either it is exemption from 
some impediment to the performance of some act, which 
is a freedom to the act ; or it is an exemption from a 
limitation, confinement, or compulsion to perform the 
act ; and this is a freedom in direction from the act. 

To non-volitional objects there belong only Mechanical 
the first of these two freedoms. All mechan- freedom - 
isms are free only to the sole mode of act or state in 
which they are, or are about to be. The clock that 
strikes is free not from but only to the stroke. The 
river that flows is free only to the current, but not from. 
The lake that stands is free only to that stand, and not, at 
the same time, from the stand. But to volitional agents we 
do not with propriety ascribe freedom in the performance 
or occupancy of an act or state unless the exemptions 
exist both to and from the act or state. We voluntary 
hardly say of a man bound fast to the floor that freedom - 
he is free in lying there, or free to lie there. If he is 
unbound, and still voluntarily remains lying, we say then 
that he does so freely. There is an exemption both from 
impediment and from limitation ; that is, there is free- 
dom both to and from the act. He performs either way 
freely: freely, because exempt from obstacle both ways, 
and free to or from both. 

"What is thus true of the freedom of a volitional agent 
in external action is, by parity, true of the volitional 
same agent in volitional action. An agent freedom - 
exempt only from impediment, and so free only to the 
act, has not the proper freedom of a volitional agent, but 
of a machine. As the clock-hammer in the given case is 
free only to the stroke, so the agent in the given case is 



24 THE ISSUE STATED. 

free to the given volition, and not also in direction from, 
it. He has only the freedom of a mechanical object, not 
the freedom of a volitional agent. 

Freedom and Freedom is not identical with power. The 
power. freedom and the power are different, and either 
may be antecedent condition to the other. Either the free- 
dom is an antecedent and a requisite condition to the exist- 
ence or possible exertion of the power ; or, reversely, the 
power is antecedent condition of which the freedom is the 
consequent. Thus, when the freedom is an exemption or 
deliverance from some restriction laid upon the capabili- 
ties of body or mind, then there comes, as a consequent, 
a new power of action or exertion. But when the free- 
dom is exemption from internal or intrinsic restriction, 
impotence, or want of faculty, then the added power or 
faculty is antecedent, and the freedom of action or exer- 
tion is the consequent. Thus in the former case a re- 
moval of a fetter from the arm is a freedom which gives 
power for striking ; or the removal of an opiate from the 
mind gives power for thought. In the latter case the 
bestowment of efficient wings upon the bird gives 
power and so freedom for or to flight ; the bestowment of 
vigor upon the intellect gives freedom to thought. 

In the case of Will the freedom is not identical with 
the power, but is a consequence of its existence. The 
confinement to a solely possible volition or direction is sup- 
posed to be intrinsic in the agent ; and the bestowment 
of a power, or faculty, or removal of incapacity, for con- 
trary volition, so that a volition either to or from the 
given direction is possible, creates that much a freedom. 
Hence the freedom is not identical with the additional 
contrary power, but is based and consequent upon it. 
I am free to will either way, because I have power or 
faculty either way. This distinction, though metaphysic- 
ally accurate and important, seldom needs in our dis- 
cussion to be noted. As each implies the other, and both 
are alike in debate, they may be usually treated as identical, 



FKEEDOM OF THE WILL DEFINED. 25 

In the case of Will, the whole debate is as to the exist- 
ence of this freedom from. In all their conceptions and 
definitions of freedom of Will, necessitarians never get be- 
yond that sole freedom to the act or state which belongs 
to mechanics and to mathematics. It is a liberty from, as 
well as to which all freedomism asserts for the responsible 
agent. The question then arises, Freedom from what? 

The question in regard to Will, we may ^ ^ ^ 
answer, is awakened by the moral sense. J^J^f 
When a man is morally obligated or divinely sense - 
commanded to will otherwise than he does, the question 
immediately arises, Can he will otherwise than he does 
will ? Is he free from, as well as to, this act ? Or is he 
limited by necessity in the given circumstances to will 
just this one way. Suppose that one way to be contrary 
to the command of Almighty God, or to his own best 
reason, or to the obligations of eternal right, or to his 
endless well-being, still between that way and his Will 
is there a sure tie securing that the disastrous volition 
shall be put forth? Is there any fate, predestination, 
antecedent causation, or law of invariable sequence, by 
which, all other directions being excluded, the Will is, 
like a mechanism, limited to one sole way ? The moment 
these questions are asked the great debate between neces- 
sity and freedom commences. 

These questions suggest the definition of the freedom 
which the moral sense requires. Bishop Bram- Definitions of 
hall defines it "an immunity from inevitability will. 
and determination to one." We should define it as the 
power or immunity to pitt forth in the same circum- 
stances either of several volitions. Or supposing a given 
volition to be in the agent's contemplation, it is the un- 
restricted power of putting forth in the same unchanged 
circumstances a different volition instead. Hence, it is 
often at the present day called the power of contrary choice. 

Mechanical freedom then to any action is exemption 
from all impediment or preventive of positive action, and 



26 THE ISSUE STATED. 

so is freedom solely to the act. Voluntary freedom is 
exemption from impediment to the being or doing as we 
will, and is freedom to or from a certain post-volitional 
act. Volitional freedom, in regard to a given volition, is 
immunity to put forth it or other volition, and is freedom 
to or from it. Power solely to a thing being, 

Alternativity. .,. -i.-ii • . 

m the given case, and with the given motives, 
without alteriety or alternative, we call an inalternative 
power, in opposition to a power which, being at once 
either to or from, we call alternative power, or alterna- 
tivity. We extend the term to any number of different 
alternatives. The alternativity is as extensive as the 
disjunctive proposition which should enumerate them. 
Thus, this, or that, or the other, or still another, is the 
possible object of alternative choice.* 

Against the exceptions and evasions of this definition 
Different act by necessitarians, the phrase " in the same 

"insamecir- . „ . ,. . - 

cumstances." circumstances is an important limitation. 
Necessitarians ambiguously grant that the will has a 
power of choosing a different from a given way, provided 
the circumstances are changed,f just as a compass needle 

* For the introduction of a few new terms we think it scarce necessary 
to apologize. Our reason for such introduction is not certainly a 
mere fondness for novelty, but a purpose to secure easiness and clear- 
ness of expression. Where these ends are to he attained, discussions in 
mental science ought not to he excluded from the privilege, so plentifully 
used in physics, of framing convenient additions to its terminology. 
And no department of mind is so poorly equipped with a nomenclature 
as the Will. The very ambiguity of that primal word itself is a glar- 
ing instance. It is a proof of this eminent poverty and a shame to our 
English language that such a sentence as the following is possible: 
The will will will a will. For the verb will we have in English no 
word separate in form from the noun Will / since the term choose varies in 
meaning from the verb will. We must say the Will wills, or the Will 
chooses. And the proper participle of the verb to will, namely will-mg, 
has sunk into an adjective. 

t " That which is contended for is not merely that the will may put 
forth a choice, the contrary of what actually occurs, supposing such a 
change to occur in its circumstances as would induce it, (which all admit,) 
but that in precisely the case in which it exercises a given choice, it is 
fully adequate to a contrary election." (Princeton Essays, p. 254.) 



FKEEDOM OF THE WILL DEFINED. 27 

has a power of pointing a different from a given way, 
namely, provided the circumstances be different from the 
given way. But the compass needle has not the power 
in the same given and unchanged conditions of pointing 
alternatively either one of two or more different ways. 
It cannot point one of several ways with the full power 
at the initial instant of pointing other way instead. It 
has solely the general power or faculty of pointing as at- 
tendant circumstances or antecedents shall cause it to 
point. Logically, however, the phrase is unnecessary; 
for the act under changed circumstances would not be 
the same act. No one is so unwise as to deny that the 
Will can act differently in different cases. 

The word "instead" is important in one of the above 
formulas of definition. The proposition that Different vo- 
the Will puts forth one volition with full power stead. 
to another volition, may either captiously or innocently 
be understood to imply the power to put forth two op- 
posite volitions at the same time.* 

This Freedom of volition must be within the Will, and 
not without the Will. It must be intravoli- Intravoli . 
tional and not extravolitional. A freedom of tl0DaL 
the Will, consisting of unimpeded power of diverse voir 
tion, cannot lie out of the Will, namely, in the intellect, 
nor emotions, nor nervous system, nor corporeal frame. 

Our definition, therefore, excludes the favorite distinc- 
tion made by necessitarians, (which will be fully ^atm-ai abii- 
considered hereafter,) between "moral" and ^[Jte 1 * loii" 
" natural" ability ; that is, an ability in the Will 
and an ability outside the Will. Thus to a similar defini- 

* M The question is not whether the will, in one and the same act of 
choice, may or may not choose two contrary objects. This is too absurd 
to be maintained." (Princeton Essays, p. 251.) 

" Contrary choice is willing as he does and otherwise — choosing as he 
does and does not." (Professor Lawrence, Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1863.) 
This misstatement is the more noticeable from its being made in full 
view of the definition, furnished by the present writer, containing the 
terms which excluded it. 



28 THE ISSUE STATED. 

tion of free Will given by Dr. West, namely, that the agent 
can will otherwise than a given way, the younger Ed- 
wards makes the following irrelevant exception : " If by 
power and can he means natural power, I agree that in 
any given case we have a power to act or decline the pro- 
posed action. A man possesses liberty when he possesses 
a natural or physical power to do an action, and is under 
no natural inability with respect to that action." By this 
"natural or physical power," Edwards means power out- 
side the Will externally to execute or fulfill its volitions. 
A man possesses liberty indeed in such a case, but not 
liberty in the Will, or of the Will, but liberty of the 
muscular power. A physical strength or energy sufficient, 
Sufficient w T ithin a man's system, even to a given volition, 
is not is not in itself adequate power in the existing: 

adequate . 

power. circumstances in the Will to such a volition. 
An ox may possess sufficiency of physical strength even 
in his volitional energies to will a moral volition, but that 
does not constitute the adequate power. 

Of the definitions of Freedom of Will given by necessi- 
Three neces- Marians, we may mention three. The first is 
inSs o? f " that of Edwards, which is indeed a definition of 
Freedom. a Freedom, but not of a Freedom in the Will; 
the second is that of Hobbes, which is truly located in the 
Will, but is not a Freedom, certainly not a Freedom with- 
in the present argument ; the third is a blending of the 
two, or rather a running of the former into the latter, 
subjecting it to all the objections belonging to the latter. 
The definition of Freedom by Edwards is " the power of 
doing as we please." That by Hobbes is " exemption from 
impediment extrinsic to the nature of the subject." The 
blending of the two is " the power of willing as we will." 
I. The definition of Edwards is in the following words : 
" The plain and obvious meaning of the words 

By Edwards. ., , ,., . ° . 

freedom ana liberty, in common speech, is 
power, opportunity, or advantage that any one has to do 
as he pleases. Or, in other words, his being free from 



FREEDOM OF THE WILL DEFINED. 29 

hinderance or impediment in the way of doing or con- 
ducting, in any respect, as he will." Of this definition 
of liberty he boasts in words of great pomp and defiance, 
as expressing the only liberty conceivable ; " therefore no 
Arminian, Pelagian, or Epicurean can rise higher in his 
conceptions of liberty than the notion of it whieh I have 
explained, which notion is apparently perfectly consistent 
with the whole of that necessity of men's actions which 
I suppose takes place. And I scruple not to say it is 
beyond all their wits to invent a higher notion or form a 
higher imagination of liberty, let them talk of sovereign- 
ty of the will, self-determining power, self-motion, self- 
direction, arbitrary decision, liberty ad utrumvis, power 
of choosing differently in given cases, etc., etc., as long as 
they will. It is apparent that these men, in their strenu- 
ous affirmation and dispute about these things, aim at 
they know not what, fighting for something they have 
no conception of, substituting a number of confused un- 
meaning words instead of things and instead of thought. 
They may be challenged clearly to explain what they 
would have : they never can answer the challenge."* 

Of this definition we may remark that it is to be ex- 
cluded from the discussion as being, so far as Is no defini% 
freedom in the Will is concerned, not a poor tion - 

* We may here passingly remark : 1. That " the power of choosing 
differently in given cases " is just the " power of contrary choice," (and 
under the term choice Edwards includes volition,) which is maintained 
by some at the present day who hold Edwards as a standard. But it is 
plain that Edwards here repudiates it in his highest strain, denouncing 
it as the very theory which his treatise had demonstrated to be false, 
unmeaning, contradictory, and unthinkable. 2. Edwards defines for us 
a freedom which is no freedom, and by his very declaration that this is 
the highest (in his view) conceivable, he excludes all others, specifically 
excluding power of contrary choice. There is no freedom but a no-free- 
dom. This is just as if a materialist should define spirit to be matter, 
declare that no higher notion of spirit is " conceivable," and then claim 
to be a spiritualist, a believer in the highest possible spirit ! So that this 
very passage (which is habitually quoted to prove that Edwards main- 
tains the highest freedom of will) really sweeps all free-will from 
existence. 



30 THE ISSUE STATED. 

definition, but no definition at all. And when Edwards 
boasts that this is the only conceivable freedom, he em- 
phatically denies all freedom to the Will. It is a freedom 
not to will, but to do ; that is, perform or execute what 
we have previously willed. It is a freedom belonging to 
external action, located out of and subsequent to volition ; 
a freedom of the post- volitional operations. It takes not 
existence until the Will is done and is out of the ques- 
tion. It is corporeal and voluntary freedom, not voli- 
tional freedom. The Will is not its subject. But a free- 
dom of Will which belongs not to the Will and is no 
quality of Will, is a contradiction. 

This power of " doing as we will," which Edwards 
This freedom proclaims thus magniloquently to be the only 
cessitation. conceivable sort of freedom, is also excluded as 
not meeting the demands of the nloral sense. It consists 
in a subjection absolutely perfect, first, of the external or 
post-volitional act to the volition. Then the volition is, 
with as absolute a perfectness, subjected to the causative 
strongest motive. And the strongest motive is brought 
upon the mind by a chain of antecedent necessary causes. 
Thus this freedom consists in bringing act, volition, and 
motive into existence as so many fixed links in the end- 
less chain of fixed necessitations. The freedom at last 
consists in fixing both the being and action of the agent 
under necessitative causation .as absolutely as the fossil 
petrifaction is fixed in its solid rock. " What does your 
free-will consist in," says Voltaire, as quoted by Fletcher, 
"but a power to do willingly what absolute necessity 
makes you choose ?" 

The fact that the Will is drawn or secretly attracted, 

so that its volition goes forth eagerly and of 

does not im- itself, as the soul does of itself by its own spon- 

ply freedom. , " x 

taneous power go after happiness, renders the 
necessity none the less absolute. Around the faculties 
of the soul a circumvallating line of causation is still 
thereby none the less absolutely drawn because it is del- 



FREEDOM OF THE WILL DEFINED. 31 

icately drawn and finely shaded. The resisting power 
at the spring of the Will may be as completely annihilated 
by a seduction or a fascination as by a rude impulsion. 
Causation securing effect, which Edwards maintains must 
rule at every infinitesimal point to secure us from atheism, 
as truly secures this so called free forthgoing of the soul 
as the steam power secures the movement of the car. 
No fine word-painting will change this necessity to 
freedom. 

II. Mr. Hobbes endeavors to give his definition of lib- 
erty a scientific form. " Liberty is the absence H obbes's 
of all impediments to action that are not con- defimtl0n - 
tained in the nature and intrinsical quality of the agent. 
"As, for example, the water is said to descend freely, or 
to descend by the channel of the river, because there is 
no impediment that way; but not across, because the 
banks are impediments. And though the water cannot 
ascend, yet men never say it wants the liberty to ascend, 
but the faculty or power, because the impediment is in 
the nature of the water and intrinsical." 

From this definition it results that if the impediment 
or necessitation excluding the contrary volition be sim- 
ply intrinsic and not extrinsic, the Will is still free. Nat- 
ural or internal necessity is thereby compatible with 
freedom. 

On the definition we make the following points : 

1 . Liberty is truly defined by Hobbes to be " an absence 
of impediment to action," as we have defined it to be an 
exemption from limitation. But when he confines it to 
exemption from impediment which is "not contained 
in the nature and intrinsic quality of the ^,-6^^ 
agent," that is, to external impediment, in e t?fn siS fr S! 
he makes a fictitious qualification. A being pediment - 
may be as truly said to be free from an intrinsic 
and natural impediment or circumscription or limita- 
tion as from an extrinsic. A being is often said to be 
free from the intrinsic accident of disease ; a man par- 



32 THE ISSUE STATED. 

doned is held free from intrinsic guilt. Our Saviour, 
even as man, was free from intrinsic depravity. A learned 
man is free from his own natural ignorance and preju- 
dices. A being may be said also to be free from any 
supposable disadvantage, real or imaginary, intrinsic or 
extrinsic. Spirit is free from the pressure of gravitation. 
Angels are free from original sin. And, what is deci- 
sive as to volitional freedom, a being may possess or be 
free from impediment, impotence, or want of faculty in 
his own nature which disables him from performing the 
proper conditions belonging to his responsible position or 
to his own wellbeing. For, in this sense, alternative Will 
may be truly and properly called free; free from that 
necessity or unipotence, that limitation to one solely pos- % 
sible effectuation, to which all other cause is limited, and 
which would disable the agent from performing the proba- 
tionary conditions belonging to his responsible wellbeing. 
The limitation assigned, therefore, by Hobbes's definition 
of liberty, to an immunity from an extrinsic impediment, 
falls to the ground, and the word is used within its true 
limits as an antithesis to real or supposable intrinsic lim- 
itation or impediment. 

Negatively, also, beings may be truly said to be not 
Non-freedom f ree from intrinsic and natural negative imped- 
sic m impedi- iments or affirmative limitations to particular 
modes of action. Matter is not free from grav- 
itation or the laws of motion. Mind is not free from 
finite circumscription. Necessary cause is not free from 
a unification to a single and solely possible effect. Per- 
ception is not free from a conformity to the exact appear- 
ance of the object perceived. And so the necessitated 
Will is not free from an absolute and fixed obedience to 
the sole strongest motive force. It has no alternative 
but to obey, and is therefore inalternative. 

If action, volitional or otherwise, be required of an 
agent, he ought to be free to such action; but he can- 
not be free to it unless he possesses the power for it. 



FREEDOM OF THE WILL DEFINED. 33 

He is not free to the exertion of power which he does 
not possess. He has not the power which, as already- 
said, is the basis and condition of the freedom. If he be 
responsibly required, then he is not free from such want 
of power, impotence, or impediment to the discharge of 
his requirements as a responsible being. 

2. Though an inanimate object when exempted from 
supposable impediments be always called free, Freedom to 

... _-_. and from the 

not so a living agent. He must possess not act. 
only power (and exemption from prevention) to the act, 
but power reversely from the act. Water may descend 
the channel freely, or stand in the spring freely ; but a 
man in a prison, however willing and unimpeded his stay, 
does not stay freely, for he can do no otherwise than 
stay. A stone cast from the pinnacle of the temple in 
its descent falls freely ; but a man who has leaped from 
the same point, however willingly he thence tends to the 
earth, does not tend freely, for he can do no otherwise. 
A man may be impelled to walk through the narrow 
paths of a labyrinth walled on -either side ; he may be 
pleased with the operation ; in so walking he may do as 
ho is pleased, and in that sense as he pleases ; but he 
does not do it freely, for it is the only thing he can do. 
To the freedom of a living agent, therefore, the twofold 
power is requisite ; the power to the act and the power 
from the act. Confinement, limitation to a unit, circum- 
scription, necessitation, excluding power for alteriety, is 
fatal to the liberty of the agent in the external and vol- 
untary act, and by parity in the internal volitional act. 
To act as we are pleased, to act willingly and to act freely, 
are not always one and the same thing. 

Mr. Hobbes's definition is, therefore, doubly incorrect 
as applied to an agent's Will. It has a false exclusion 01 
internal impediment ; it is a power solely to and not from 
the particular act, and so is wholly inapplicable to a 
volitional agent, and therefore is no freedom debated 
in this discussion. And moreover failing to meet the 

3 



34 THE ISSUE STATED. 

demands of the moral sense, it is in every respect ex 
eluded. 

Under the same refutation we bring Professor Haven's 
Haven's definition of freedom : " Any faculty of mind 
definition. or or g an f foody is free when its own specific 
and proper action is not hindered." The will of a neces- 
sitated agent, we reply, may be unhindered in " its own 
specific and proper action," and yet not be responsibly 
" free." He may want that power upon which such free- 
dom is based ; the power over and above his necessita- 
ted " specific and proper action ;" the power, namely, of 
performing the conditions of his responsible being, in 
obedience to a requirement contrary to the stronger 
motive force. He is not free to perform his moral obli- 
gations as a responsible agent. 

III. To the Edwardean definition of freedom of Will 
as the power of doing as toe will, our objection is above 
stated, that it is not located in the Will. To this objec- 
tion it is replied, and by Edwards himself, by running 
the Edwardean into the. Hobbesian : " to will is m fact 
to do something ; it is to put forth a volition ; and so 
willing as tne f ree( lom of the Will by this definition fairly 
we win, - g tne u p 0Wer f w m as we w iU t " And thence 

it is deduced that the choosing at all is choosing freely; 
freedom and volition being identical.* We thereto 
admit, as of Hobbes's definition, that this freedom is in- 
deed located in the Will, but deny that it is a volitional 
or more than a mechanical freedom. For, 

1. As we have already shown, the assumption at its 
is not an base, that freedom is " the power of doing as 

agent's in .„ . . t A 

freedom. we please or will, is entirely untrue. A man 
may do as he pleases, and yet not be free, both because his 
antecedent please is necessitated, and because he is limited 
and circumscribed to the course with which he is pleased. 
Power both'pro and contra, power to the thing and from 
the thing, is requisite for the liberty of a free agent. 

*See p. 206. 



FKEEDOM OF THE WILL DEFINED. 35 

Power, then, to the given volition, and from the volition, 
and to a reverse volition, must exist, or the agent is not 
free in the volition. It is an error to call an agent voli- 
tionally free unless he has power for either one of two or 
more volitions. The above pompous challenge of Ed- 
wards is, therefore, we think, fairly met and invalidated. 
But, 

2. According to necessitarianism all actions, motions, 
or states of being are equally fixed, and so Makes ail 
equally free. Impediments, intrinsic or extrin- equally free, 
sic, are only modifications of that action which finally 
and really results ; that is, they are causes by which the 
final action is really shaped. The real action, as so 
shaped, then, takes place without prevention or impedi- 
ment ; that is, takes place freely. So, in the final and 
absolute, all action is by this equally free. To speak of 
a free action, then, distinctively, is absurd. There is no 
such distinction to mark by the word. A free action is 
simply an action. The prefix free would, then, be inert 
and void. It would be used in a senseless sense. And 
a word without meaning, and adding no idea, is not a 
w T ord, but a mere sound. 

The voidness of the term appears by this further con- 
sideration. The power tO Will as We Will, is Renders the 

simply the mechanical power for a thing to do dom void, 
as it does; to be as it bees. Now there is nothing what- 
ever which has not that notable power and freedom. A 
mental perception, a sensation, or a clock-stroke, is as 
free as a volition. A bar of iron, a block of wood, a 
cube of granite, has that quality. The rail-car is free to 
run solely as it runs, the prison walls to stand as they 
stand, the marble monument to lie as it lies. All the 
physical machinery of the universe has the liberty to be 
solely as it is, to operate as it operates. The figures of 
geometry are all equally free. The square is free to -be 
quadrangular, the circle to be round, the globe to be glob- 
ular. And this freedom of the Will, which is boasted by 



36 THE ISSUE STATED. 

Edwards as the loftiest conceivable, is just the freedom 
by which whatever is, is and must be. 

Or if the phrase to will as we will means, as it is some- 
Makesanend . times made to mean, to put forth a volition 
necessS of which is under necessitation to be what it is 
from a previous volition, responsible freedom 
is excluded. That previous volition is under necessitation 
of a previous volition, and so we are in each volition 
necessitated by an infinite series of anterior necessi- 
tating and necessitated volitions. The same neeessita- 
tive result follows if we suppose the volition is as some 
fixed antecedent, whether such antecedent be a " choice," 
an " inclination," a " wish," or a " please." If such ante- 
cedent be a necessitated result of antecedent circumstan- 
ces or inalternative causation of any kind, freedom does 
not exist. For if each and every antecedent in the series, 
however long the series be, is fixed by its predecessor 
and fixes its successor, the whole train is necessitated, and 
the putting forth of the last volition, the one in question, 
is anteriorly fixed. And a volition whose putting forth 
is anteriorly fixed to a unitary result is not free. The 
agent possesses not the power to will otherwise in the 
case ; the power from and obligation to will otherwise 
are impossible. 

Professor Haven teaches that circumstances decide and 
a chain of ^ x ^ n ® inclination, the inclinations fix the 
Son^fsVa-' choice, and the choice fixes the volition; and 
then the freedom of the Will consists in the ab- 
soluteness of the subjection of the volition to the fixation 
by the choice. The more absolute the limitation, the 
more absolute the freedom. Circumstances, inclination, 
choice, and volition, are four nine-pins in a row ; No. 1 
knocks clown No. 2, No. 2 knocks down No. 3, and 
No. 3 knocks down No. 4. The freedom of No. 4 in its 
felling; consists in the absoluteness of its being; knocked 
by No. 3 as that is by its row of predecessors. Professor 
H. holds that it is no matter how the agent comes by his 



FREEDOM OF THE WILL DEFINED. 37 

inclination ; the only question is, Is he at liberty to be 
cQntrolled by it necessitatedly, as the nine-pin is by its 
predecessor? Certainly such reasoners ought to see that 
to subject the Will to a previous necessitative causation 
which is itself necessitated, is the annihilation of alternativ- 
ity. It forecloses the power from. The lengthening of 
the series is but an infantile attempt at relief by pushing 
the necessitation a little back, and so out of view ; they 
might just as wisely declare first as last, that the Will is 
in its simple acts fixed and circumscribed to a solely 
possible volition. 

And that is the freedom of a mechanism. Just 
as a clock-hammer possesses in its given antecedents no 
power for a different stroke instead, so the agent has no 
power for a different volition instead. The agent can in 
the given case give none but a one solely possible voli- 
tion, just as the clock-hammer can give none but a one 
solely possible stroke. This is true of every volition that 
ever takes place, just as it is true of every clock stroke 
that ever takes place. It is true of the entire series of 
volitions of every single agent, as it is true of the entire 
series of the strokes of every single clock. Just as, 
should a clock have an eternal existence, each stroke 
would be a solely possible stroke, so, should an agent 
have an eternal existence, each volition would be a solely 
possible volition. As the clock could not, in a single one 
instance of the infinite, help giving tha given stroke, so 
the agent could not in a single instance avoid giving the 
given volition. If the volitions were all wicked, still, the 
agent gives the solely possible. No sinful volition that 
ever takes place could in the given antecedents have been 
withheld. No sin ever committed could have been helped 
or avoided. Sin and damnation are as inevitable to the 
sinner as the clock-stroke is to the clock. 

A clock-hammer can give a different stroke, if it inclines 
or is moved to. That is, it can strike differently sequently 
upon different antecedents. Just so, necessitarians admit 



38 THE ISSUE STATED. 

that the agent can will otherwise if — the antecedents are 
otherwise. That is, he can will differently in different 
cases / which nobody was ever so unwise as to deny. 
Thus to our making a man's Arminianism or Calvinism 
depend on his answer to Fletcher's question, " Is the Will 
at liberty to choose otherwise than it does, or is it not ?" 
Professor Lawrence, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, replies, 
" A man is at perfect liberty to choose otherwise than he 
does, if he wishes to." A clock-hammer is perfectly at 
liberty, we reply, to strike otherwise if it is inclined to. 
But Professor L. teaches, with all other necessitarians, 
that this anterior "wish" of the agent is just as abso- 
lutely necessitated and controlled by antecedent causes, 
as this inclination of the clock-hammer is controlled 
by its antecedent mechanical causes. Each lies as a link 
in the chain of necessary causations. So that the voli- 
tion, in the given case, is as solely possible as the clock- 
stroke in the given case ; and we have just the mechan- 
ical freedom to and not from. And that excludes all 
responsibility, and makes a just retributive divine gov- 
ernment impossible. 

Freedom is as much contradicted by a law of Invaria- 
Law of in b^ity, that is, a law by which all Will in- 
excl5des ty variably does obey the strongest motive, even 
freedom. though able to do otherwise, as by a law of 
Causation. If the invariability be formulated as an an- 
terior fact, strictly absolute and universal, pervading all 
actual and possible cases, then by the law of contradic- 
tion the counter exception becomes impossible. Thus 
it is claimed by some thinkers that though the Will pos- 
sesses power for choice against strongest motives, yet 
that choice will never be used. If that never is an in- 
variability, as truly in itself universal as the law of causa- 
tion, the usance of the power of counter choice is impos- 
sible. It is incompatible with an absolute universal con- 
tradictory fact, and cannot take place ; and that the re- 
verse of which cannot be, is a necessity. A power which 



FREEDOM OF THE WILL DEFINED. 39 

cannot be used, a power which is not in power of the 
agent for act, is no adequate power in the agent at all. 
It exists in words only, and can be no satisfactory basis 
of responsibility. 

Indeed, this case of a Will under law of Invariability to 
obey strongest motive, with a so-called counter invariability 
power never to be used, is a case under law of causation. 
causation. The law of invariability existing, the anterior 
strongest motive is the cause why the act is one way 
rather than another. The Law of Invariability must 
ever be made true. Obeying the Law of Invariability, 
the Will must obey the strongest motive. Just so far as 
the absoluteness of the Invariability is assumed, just so 
far there is causative necessitation, and the counter power 
has no actual existence. 

When, finally, a man is required by the Moral Law to 
will otherwise than he does will, the question False defini- 

.. .. xx , - tions ex- 

mUSt, we say, be answered, Has he the power eluded. 

or freedom to will otherwise ? It does not suffice for the 
demands of our moral nature to tell us that he has a free- 
dom post-volitionally to do what he wills ; nor that he can 
will otherwise if antecedent circumstances are otherwise ; 
nor that he is free from all impediment external to him- 
self; nor that he has power to will according to the 
strongest motive ; nor that he has power to will as he 
does will; nor that freedom and volition are the same 
thing. For all these get not beyond the freedom of a mech- 
anism to a thing without the freedom of an agent from 
as well as to. The simple question is, Is he so limited in 
power in the given case to the one solely pos- The real 
sible choice or volition as not to be free to voli- ISSUK 
tionate otherwise instead, or does he possess a power of 
disjunctive volition, so that he is free to choose either one 
of several ways ? Choosing thus our own issue, as is our 
right, we affirm under requirement of the moral sense, 
as against necessity which denies, that there does exist 
in the agent a freedom of just this Kind. 



40 THE ISSUE STATED. 

The terms opposed to this liberty of " doing or willing 
as we will," Edwards thus specifies : " One is constraint ; 
Compulsion tne same ^ s otherwise called force, compulsion, 

or coaction. an( j coaction, which is a person's being neces- 
sitated to do a thing contrary to his Will. The other is 
restraint, which is his being hindered, and not having 
power to do according to his WHIP 

From these definitions it follows that the highest mo- 
4re against ^ ve ' however absolutely it may cause the vo- 

wilL lition to be what it is, can never be said to 

compel it to be what it is. For compulsion is always ex- 
erted upon something exterior to the Will, but in oppo- 
sition to the Will. The Will is never itself compelled by 
motive force, for the motive in securing the existence of 
Motives do tne von tion precludes the idea of any opposi- 

not compel. ^ on Q f t ^ e Will. The case resembles creation, 
in which the created object takes its entire existence from 
its Creator, and thereby receives its whole vitality in 
perfect subjection and submission to the creative power. 
The words compel, constrain, restrain, thus presupposing 
an opposition of the Will, w^ould properly be limited tx> 
designate a force upon our extra-volitional parts or 
powers. Thus we may compel a person corporeally to 
yield, to love or hate us, to believe or know a thing ; but 
we cannot, by any motive, be said to compel one to 
choose a thing. 

This sharp distinction, however, when peremptorily 
Compulsion asserted, incurs the same confusion (as we shall 

of wiii. elsewhere notice *) between the most common 
meaning of a word and the most proper* A less com- 
mon meaning of a term is often as truly, if not the more 
proper meaning. Men may oftenest have occasion to use 
terms in their least proper sense. Men have more need 
to talk of doings than of willings ; of what they can do 
if they will than of what they can will ; of what compels 
them to do in spite of their Wills than of what compels 
* See pp. 55, 254. 



FREEDOM OF THE WILL DEFINED. 41 

their Wills to choose. Hence, though the word compel 
most frequently, if not the most properly, applies to force 
upon body against Will, yet phrases like " cloud-compel- 
ling Jove" " by dying love compelled" show that the word 
is most expressively and correctly used in application to 
force upon inanimate objects or motive force upon the 
Will. Such words, indeed, imply opposition. But that 
opposition may be either the vis inertice of matter com- 
pelled to give way, or the counter force of motive com- 
pelled to be overcome, or that resistance to change which 
is always presupposed when we speak of a cause exert- 
ing poicer to effectuate an event of body or mind which 
otherwise by the law of continuity would not take 
existence. 

However, to designate the bringing a volition into 
existence by causation of motive, it may be well NeC essitation 
to use other terms. For this purpose we ac- securesWnL 
cept the words to cause, to fix, to necessitate, to secure ; 
by all of which words we mean to express causation, or 
creation of the consequent volition in the absolute sense, 
excluding in the given case the adequate power in the 
agent for the volition to be otherwise, or not to be at all, 

"The fates lead the willing, but drag the unwilling," 
Fata ducunt volentem, nolentem trahunt. But a deeper 
fate allows no nolentem. It ^w-forms and in-forms, and 
so secures the volition and precludes the noli- Necessitation 
tion, as to rule the man, not against, but Sa^com- 1 
through the Will, by ruling the Will. It se- pulsion - 
cures the act by securing the volition. That volition is 
as truly secured as if created in the mind by Omnipotence, 
for even Omnipotence could do no more than secure the 
existence of £he act precluding the power of any alteriety. 
It does not matter whether the external act be secured 
through the volition by an immediate omnipotent agent, 
or by a sufficient fixing finite cause; for the latter totally 
excludes all counter power, and the former cannot ex- 



42 THE ISSUE STATED. 

elude it more than totally. Nor can any effect take a 
greater amount of causality, even from infinite power, 
than is just sufficient to its own production. Our cup can 
take but a cup full, even from the ocean.* To force the 
agent against his Will is a powerful securement of his act ; 
but to cause his act, precluding the very power of a 
counter volition, is a still deeper necessitation. 

In regard to the ethical relations of free volition three 
things are to be noted: 

1. Though the question of volitional freedom is awak- 
Freedom not ened by the moral intuitions, and receives its 

icai. clearest elucidation from instances of moral al- 

ternative, yet the freedom of the Will itself is not to be 
held as confined to the ethical sphere. The Will is as 
truly free in the secular and non-ethical alternatives of 
life as in the moral. 

2. The freedom of the Will form&the terminal point as 
Free agent we ascend in our inquiry from effect to cause 

sponsibiiity. in search of the location of responsibility. The 
volitional sins of a necessitated agent are what he cannot 
help. He could not volitionate otherwise. The secur- 
ative originative causation must be traced further back 
than himself, and so the responsibility. But the al- 
ternative agent who sins, with full power otherwise, has 
brought an unnecessitated, unnecessary evil into the 
world. He need not do it. He is its first necessitating 
unnecessitated cause. Nothing back of him has caused 
or made it necessary, and so nothing back of him is 
responsible. He has taken into himself all the anterior 
causations and influences, and by his own transmuting 
and originating power has created out of them a new 
and evil existence in the world. Every free agent is 
thus an original creator even out of nothing. But for 
him and such as he there would be no guilt in the world. 

* In relation to a different subject, Dr. Whichcote, of Cambridge, 
says : " The ocean can hut fill the vessel, which a much less quantity of 
• water can do." See " Moral and Keligious Aphorisms. 17C3," p. 46. 



VOLITION NOT ALWAYS PRECEDED BY EMOTION. 43 

And just so far as the volition is the necessitated result, 
however intrinsically evil, of anterior or surrounding 
circumstances, just so far the individual stands morally 
excused. 

3. A moral and responsible volitional act can be per- 
formed only by an existent free volitional agent ; Act and re 
and once done, by the very necessity of exist- EHSSrfJIjJ: 7 
ence, it can never become not done. It thence able ' 
forever becomes historically the inseparable fact and attri- 
bute solely of that agent, and the fact of its performance 
can never be literally transferred to any other being or per- 
sonality. In the personality exclusively of that agent the 
moral sense sees an axiomatically inhering responsibility, 
guilt, merit, or demerit. Consequent and correlative to 
that merit or demerit, the moral sense affixes an ethical 
desert of reward or penalty. And as the fact of the agent's 
act is untransferable from one agent to another, so the merit, 
demerit, reward, or penalty, is ethically intransferable. 
Punishment and guilt, therefore, are no more transferable 
than personal identity. When an innocent being is said 
to suffer the punishment of a guilty being the language 
is conceptual, and not barely literal and true. The inno- 
cent being is still innocent, and he endures what to the 
guilty agent would be punishment, but to himself is only 
consequent though substitutional suffering. 



CHAPTEE III. 

VOLITION NOT ALWAYS PRECEDED BY EMOTION. 

Mr. Locke held the doctrine that uneasiness is the 

necessary antecedent to every volition. " Good volitions re- 
, ./ -ii.. -i 8Ult of xm - 

and evil, present and absent, it is true, work easiness? 

upon the mind; but that which immediately determines 

the Will from time to time to every voluntary action is 

the uneasiness of desire, fixed on some absent good, 



44 THE ISSUE STATED. 

either negative, as indolence to one in pain, or positive, 
as enjoyment of pleasure. That it is the uneasiness that 
determines the Will to successive voluntary actions, 
whereof the greatest part of our lives is made up, and by 
which we are conducted through different courses to dif- 
ferent ends, I shall endeavor to show, both from experi- 
ence and the reason of the thing." 

Again : " For good though appearing and allowed 

ever so great, yet till it has raised desires in our minds, 

and thereby made us uneasy in its want, it reaches not 

our will; we are not within the sphere of its activity." 

If this be indeed true, action is born of misery. All 

energetically active beings must be unhappy, 

and the more energetic the action the intenser 

must be the stimulant by which they are urged and 

chased. 

Post equitem sedet atra cura. 

A perfectly happy being must be a perfectly stagnant 
being. God and holy angels must either be as tranquil 
as the sleeping deity of Epicurus, or as unhappy as the 
evil omnipotence of Manes. 

Sir James Mackintosh, Upham, and others, maintain that 
Thatemotion tne volition must ever be preceded by an emo- 
cedS s ?oit- tion of desire. " We can easily imagine," says 
Mackintosh, " a percipient and thinking being 
without a capacity of receiving pain or pleasure. Such 
a being might perceive what we do ; if we could conceive 
him to reason, he might reason justly ; and if he were to 
judge at all, there seems no reason why he should not 
judge truly. But what could induce such a being to 
will or to act ? It seems evident that his existence could 
only be a state of passive contemplation. Reason, as 
reason, can never be a motive to action." 

On the contrary, it is the clear decision of conscious- 
ness that the reasonableness or the intellective 
' ■ perception of advantage to one's self or an- 
other, or the perception of accordance with a previous 



VOLITION NOT ALWAYS PKECEDED BY EMOTION. 45 

purpose, or the intuitive perception of right, may so come 
in immediate contact with Will as to be the motive of 
volition. 

1. The reasonable, we submit to every man's conscious- 
ness, is not choosable simply because it is de- 1. The rea- 
sirable, but also because it is reasonable. The motive. 
reasonable, as reasonable, is a reason or motive for action. 
The reasonable is not only desirable, but it is eligible, 
choosable. I may choose a thing simply and solely be- 
cause it is reasonable, and not because it is desirable. I 
may choose the reasonable in preference to the desirable. 
I may be in a state of purpose to choose not the pleasant, 
not the desirable, but the reasonable. 

2. If emotion is an antecedent condition to volition, we 
might suppose, according to the usual reason- 2. interest 

tt ' . . , , , emotion fails 

mg of necessitarians, that the stronger the of volition. 
emotion the surer the volition. If a less emotive object 
prevailed by so much as the emotion was less, by that 
much there was choice without emotion. By that much 
the Will acted from emotionless intellection. Now it is 
certainly very common for men to choose a distant in- 
terest apparently without emotion, and appreciated by 
but the driest calculation in preference to a matter of 
present emotive enjoyment. By the usual modes of ne- 
cessitarian reasoning this is proof positive of the greater 
motive power of cold intellection over emotion. 

3. But an intellectively perceived advantage to another 
is an ample motive for energetic volition. An 3.inteiiective 

_ T -r-i i i motive pre- 

emotionless old man may plant trees whose vaiis. 
shade he never expects to enjoy, coolly and simply for the 
advantage of posterity. A man may perform an act for 
the benefit of the antipodes whom he has never seen, be- 
cause he perceives it to be a choosable thing that they 
should be benefited just as coolly and clearly as he rec- 
ognizes that a circle is not a triangle. 

4. A being may will purely because he knows and 
sees it to be right. Right, as right, simply cognized, is 



46 THE ISSUE STATED. 

motive upon Will without any intervening condition. 
The perception of obligation may be obeyed as a per- 
ception. It has a claim which can be measured and 
accepted as motive force. There is weight and power 
for action in it as a matter of moral calculation. 

5. The doctrine that the Will chooses only in behalf of 
agreeable emotion, forms a fair basis for the selfish sys- 
tem of morals. Upon that basis it may justly be said 
that whatever benefaction we confer upon others we 
confer purely and solely for the emotive gratification it 
affords to ourselves. 

6. But a large share of the great sum total of human 
6 Dry pur- volitions is put forth purely from a perceived 

§uces?oii- accordance with a general anterior purpose. I 
tlon# have a purpose to write through the words and 

letters of a line or page ; every letter is the product of a 
volition ; but so far as I can see, the whole train of vo- 
litions is a perfectly emotionless one, each volition obey- 
ing the general purpose; the mind, indeed, being in a 
permanent state of willingness. So far as I can see, the 
whole process is transacted between the intellect in a 
certain state of quiet purpose and the particular volition. 
A book-keeper in casting up a long row of figures exerts 
at least one volition at each figure as soon as his eye has 
perception of its shape and identifies its meaning. Be- 
tween this identification and the volition he is conscious 
of no emotion intervening. The whole is a dry emotion- 
less process. Besides, our volitions are as infinitesimal, 
we might say, as the ultimate atoms of matter, and 
as infinite in number. In writing this page there is 
a volition for every turn of the pen in every letter, 
so that the pulsations of Will, like the pulsations of 
sound, fuse into a flow. If, therefore, emotion pre- 
cedes volition, emotion is fused into a simply animate 
and living state of mind, and the doctrine is lost in the 
fusion. 

7. Are the men of most energetic and powerful action 



FREEDOM OF WILL CAUSATIONALLY PRESENTED. 47 
the men of the most excitable desires ? They _ __ 

*> 7. Men of 

are, indeed, men of the strongest purpose, of gjj£* 2°- 
the most unflinching determination; but the S?ong 0f voii- 
energy of their volitions is surely not to be 10ns * 
measured by the turbulence of the emotions by which they 
are preceded. The question, be it marked, does not con- 
cern the strength of the constitutional appetencies of the 
man, but the intensity or ebullition of the immediate 
emotion ; and so viewed, it may be held as a general 
rule that the men of strongest volitions are men of the 
least perturbable emotion. As there is a dry light, lumen 
siccum, of the intellect, so there is a dry force to the 
volition. 

From all this we conclude that pure intellection, with- 
out any intervening emotion, does come as motive-force 
in immediate contact upon the springs of volition. 



CHAPTEK IT. 

FREEDOM OF WILL CAUSATIONALLY PRESENTED. 

Freedom of the Will, as distinguished from necessity, 
is usually defined to be that power by which it Causational 
may put forth either of several volitions, or, in defimtlon - 
causational terms, that property of the volitional cause 
by which it produces either of several possible effects. It 
is an either-causal power. 

But to a full development of these definitions an 
exposition is requisite of the terms cause, power, 

NECESSITY, and CERTAINTY. 

A cause is a subject by whose existence another sub- 
ject comes into existence, or mav, without con- 

•' ,. . n , , / , Definitions. 

tradiction of any truth, be conceived to so come 
into existence. 



4:8 THE ISSUE STATED. 

Power is that element in a cause by which the effect 
comes into existence, or may, witlibut involving contra- 
diction, be supposed to come into existence. 

If power is a clear, valid, cognizable idea of a true 
reality, then its absence or non-existence is an equally 
valid cognition. We have, therefore, the following pre- 
cise and cognizable definition of necessity and its 
cognates. 

• Necessity in a thing is the non-existence therein of 
Definitions, adequate power for the thing to be otherwise 
Necessity. t k an it is. Necessity of particular existence 
is the non-existence of adequate power to exist otherwise 
than the one sole given way. Necessity of a causation 
or an action is the absence of power of non-causation or 
non-action, and of all other causation or action than the 
one sole given mode. 

That is usually saici to be necessary the opposite or 
Conception alteriety of which cannot be conceived. It 
ofnecessity. wou ] ( j j perhaps, be more accurate to say that 
that is necessary which we do positively and compulsorily 
conceive cannot be the different or the opposite of what 
it ls. This conceiving of the impossibility of the diverse 
arises not so much from the law of our minds as from 
the nature of the necessary subject itself. If it can be 
said to arise from the law of our minds, it is from that 
law by which our minds see things as they are ; the law 
that our perceptive intuitions must be controlled by the 
object intuited. We see this impossibility of opposite, 
because it is a reality before our view. 

All necessity is one — the impossibility of a different. 
itsonenessin This may exist in different classes of objects; 

different ob- , , i • r» . • • i • i 

jects. and thus a classification may arise which may 

be useful in itself, but must not be mistaken for a 
classification of varieties of the necessity itself. The im- 
possibility of an opposite may exist in matter, in chemical 
affinity, in magnetism; but that does not give. rise to an 
essentially different material necessity, chemical necessity, 



FREEDOM OF WILL CAUSATIONALLY PRESENTED. 49 

magnetic necessity. There may be the necessity of a 
clock stroke and of a volition ; but these are not two 
kinds of necessity, but the same necessity in two kinds 
of operation. 

The necessity may exist in different sorts of connec- 
tion between two things, yet the necessity is And connec . 
not different, being still the impossibility of tlons * 
the diverse. So, between 2X2 and 4 there is a necessary 
connection ; and between the pressure upon a clock-ham- 
mer and its stroke there is a necessary connection. 
These connections are very different connections ; but 
their necessity is the same, namely, the impossibility of 
the opposite. 

We have as yet seen no satisfactorily complete and ex- 
haustive classification of those entities, truths, classification 

,. . . i«i of neces- 

qualities, connections, etc., which, as we neces- wries. 
sarily see, cannot but be. Sufficiently complete for our 
purpose may be a division into entities and relations, and 
those entities and relations may be either primordial or 
derived. 

I. By Entities we mean whatever is cognized by the 
intuition as a simple and single reality. And 

, . t t p i it/, Into entities. 

among the primordial oi these, are the self-ex- 
istent^ time, space; and we are inclined to add in mathe- 
matics the point and the line. These are primordial in 
the sense of being unoriginated and eternal. Among the 
derived or originated entities, which have a beginning 
and yet become necessary, are all facts or events, which, 
being once done, remain facts and done forever. There 
is no possibility that they can become never having been 
done, and so they are under a necessity of existence. 

II. Among the Relations which are primordially and 
eternally necessary, are the relations of qeom- 

n , \ . y -, ™ And relations. 

etry, of number, oi right and wrong, lnese 
are primordial, because uncreated; and indeed all crea- 
tion must take place in accordance with their presup- 
posed existence, and be subject to their application and 

4 



50 THE ISSUE STATED. 

laws. The special application of these relations in the 
created objects is not primordial, but has beginning. 

The popular distinction of moral and natural necessity 
No necessi- is a distinction not in the necessity itself, but 

and moral, in the class of subjects to which it belongs.* 
There is no intrinsic moral necessity other than mere 
moral obligation. I am obligated by the law of right, 
but not necessitated. The right act is what ought to be, 
not what must be. There is no impossibility of the op- 
posite of Right, for there is plenty of Wrong. On the 
other hand there is no necessity which is not natural, 
that is, existing in the nature of things. The connec- 
tion of causal necessity existing between a motive and a 
volition necessarily consequent, is as natural as the con- 
nection of causal necessity existing between the pressure 
upon the clock-hammer and the stroke. A man may be 
naturally necessitated to will what is morally right ; but 
that would be not a moral but a natural necessity. It 
is the object of the volition which is here moral/ its 
necessity is natural. 

The fallacies of necessitarianism, in regard to power, 
Fire necessi- are numerous, deceptive, and pregnant with 

cies. absurd consequences. Thus : 

1. Necessitarians confound power for some other 
thing with power to a given thing. A power to see the 
planet Herschell is no power to talk with its inhabitants. 
A power of muscle to strike, or of brains to think, is no 
power whatever of the soul to will. So the power to do 
as we will is no freedom or power in the Will to will 
otherwise than a sole way, nor even a freedom or power 
to will at all. 

2. Necessitarians confound a power with the power 
to or from a thing. A power is often only a part, and 
an insufficient part, too, of the power. The power to do 
a thing is the complete and adequate power, which is 
requisite to responsibility. Where an act requires for its 

* See p. 314. 



FREEDOM OF WILL CAUSATIONALLY PRESENTED. 51 

fulfillment several concurrent or constituent powers, each 
one of these may be deceptively so affirmed as to signify 
the adequate and responsible power. A fluent elocution- 
ist has a power to deliver an extemporaneous oration, 
and yet not the power, for he has not the intellectual 
capacity to think it. So power of Will and power of 
post-volitional motion are both concurrently requisite in 
order to the complete performance of a one voluntary act. 
If a writer, therefore, should say, because a man has a 
power, intellectual or corporeal, for the act, that the 
man has the power to perform the act, he might deceive 
his readers. He has a power; he has powers/ he has 
faculties; but he has not the power; that is, he has not 
the complete adequate power unless there is also "ability" 
or power in his Will for the requisite volition. 

We shall usually in this treatise use the prefix adjec- 
tive adequate in order to guard against this ambiguity. 

3. Necessitarians confound the power, that is, the ade- 
quate power, for a thing with adequate strength. An ox 
has adequate strength to execute a minuet as truly as an 
opera dancer, but "he has not the power. So the living 
body of a man has ample strength to perform all that his 
Will shall dictate ; but it has not, therefore, the power to 
do so without the volition, any more than a dead body. 
So there may be physical streagth in an agent, and even 
in his Will, to put forth a different choice in the place of 
the one he does put forth ; but neither he nor his Will 
has, therefore, the power. 

4. Necessitarians confound a faculty for any hind act 
with the adequate power for a specific exercise or per- 
formance. A faculty for language is not necessarily 
the adequate power to speak French; the faculty of 
sight is not adequate power to see stars by daylight. 
The faculty of thought, of emotion, of Will, does not 
necessarily imply an adequate responsible power to 
repent, to serve God, to be perfectly holy. 

5. Necessitarians confound the power for a thing with 



52 THE ISSUE STATED. 

the conditions of the power. Legs are a condition to 
the full power of walking, but not the power itself. So 
a will or an inclination is a condition to the power of 
corporeal action ; but a will, a choice, or an inclination, 
is no more the power itself of action than legs are the 
power of walking. Yet, strange to say, important parts 
of the necessitarian system of theology are founded on 
this confounding of volition, or, as they call it, inclination 
with power. 

Professor Haven, for instance, in his Mental Philosophy, 
Confounding in discussing the question whether toe can do 

inclination , T ,. .,. 7 . . 77 

with power, what we have no disposition, or choice, or iciU 
to do, (p. 551,} decides that the answer depends upon 
whether or not we consider disposition, choice, or Will 
to be identical with power. If the two are identical, 
then want of choice, he thinks, is want of power ; if not, 
then want of choice, etc., is no want of power, and my 
body is able to act without choosing to act. On all this 
we remark that the identification of choice and power is 
absurd ; that the definition by which the identity is either 
denied or affirmed is quite as absurd, and that the infer- 
ence he draws, namely, that if the two be not identical, 
then we can corporeally act without choice to act, is as 
absurd as either, both as an inference and as a suppos- 
able fact. For, • 

1. Disposition, inclination, choice, or Will, is not power, 
Condition of any more than it is space or substance, though 

power not . . * 

power itself, it be the condition of power. Disposition may 
intrinsically have power or intensity; its presence may 
occasion, or be the condition of, power ; but to identify 
it as power itself is as irrational as to identify substance 
with space, or concrete with quality. 

2. The definitions intended by Professor Haven, either 
to include or exclude this identification, are both absurd, 
and about equally absurd. Power he first proposes to 
define, as denoting " all that is requisite to the actual 
doing of a thing." Then my legs are power of walking ; 



FREEDOM OF WILL CaUSATIONALLY PRESENTED. 53 

for they are requisite to the actual doing of the thing. 
Then I am myself the power of walking; for a walker, 
an agent, is necessary to the walking. In fine, this defi- 
nition includes as power the agent, the instrument, and 
all the conditions, both to the doing and to the pow r er 
of doing a thing. As instruments, so inclination or choice 
is not the power, but the condition requisite to the power 
of doing a thing. So far as inclination or choice is not 
power, Professor H. infers that a man has power to act 
without choice. What a man can do with choice he can 
do without choice. By that same reasoning I can prove 
that a penniless pauper can pay the national debt of En- 
gland. For money is not power ; and so what a man can 
do with money he can do without money. If with money 
he could pay the national debt, then he can do it without 
money ! 

But a narrow definition, he tells us, limits power " to 
denote all that is requisite to the doing the Palsedefini . 
thing, provided we please or choose to do it." tion - 
Then, again, my legs are the power of walking, and my 
eyes the power of seeing, and my nose the power of 
smelling. That these and all other organs, and all 
choices and volitions, are conditions to the power of act- 
ing, is perfectly plain ; we should not have the power 
without them ; but they are not the power itself. The 
power exists, consequently, upon them. 

3. But Professor H. argues, If choice is power, then I 
have not the power to act without the choice ; Absurd con . 
but if choice be not power, then I have the se( i uences - 
power to act without choice. But how, Professor, if the 
choice should prove to be not the power itself, but, what is 
plainly the fact, the condition requisite to the power ? 
Plainly, if the condition requisite to the power is want- 
ing to the agent the act cannot be done, for want both 
of condition and power ; that is, the choice is not power, 
yet the corporiety has no power to act without the choice 
to act. We should like to, see any necessitarian gentle- 



54 THE ISSUE STATED. 

man, who says " choice is not power ', and so I have power 
to get up and walk across the floor without any choice or 
volition whatever" perform the feat. If pure corporiety 
has this power of action without volition, a dead body 
may leap from the dissector's table and march off with- 
out even intending it. 

In every voluntary external action two factors must 
ever unite, each possessing a constituent power,* namely, 
the Will, and the extra-volitional, which, though it 
includes mind, we will embrace under the term cor- 
poriety. To say that either of these are power, instead 
of saying that they possess power, is a confusion of terms. 
cooperation Both factors must combine, and the powers of 
of factors. *b th factors must be ready to co-operate, in 
order to the existence of the one complete adequate 
power for the entire composite act. It is then false to 
say that the corporiety has the adequate power to the 
act in the absence of the Will in its full power of action. 
No less false is it to say that the Will with its full power 
can perform the composite act without the corporiety in 
its adapted power. 

And hereby we may expose the fallacy of those neces- 
Faisedeniai^ sitarians, with Edwards at their head,f who 
in will. tell us that men do in ordinary language say 
and hold that if an act or object be physically or corpo- 
really in their power, so that the act is doable provided 
they have the will, then the act or object is completely in 
their power ; so that ability has no reference to Will, and 
power or ability is not, in strict propriety of speech, re- 
quirable or predicable of Will. A single rational reflec- 
tion ought to tell those thinkers that the thing properly 
Source of the cau< ed power, and ordinarily styled ability, is as 
falsity. truly needed, and exists in the Will to enact a 
volition as in the corporiety to obey the volition and 
enact the voluntary motion. When men speak as if all 
the power required to the composite voluntary move- 
* See p. 253. t See the language of Edwards, p. 249. 



FREEDOM OF WILL CAUSATIONALLY PRESENTED. 55 

merit is merely in the corporiety, the poioer correspondent 
in the Will is tacitly assumed as understood, and as of 
course. My power to will being implied silently, then a 
thing or act is in my power if it be corporeally so, and 
then nothing is needed but the will or volition ; I can 
then do it if I will. But, on the other side, I may tacitly 
assume the corporeal power, and from that standpoint I 
may say that all that is wanting to the full performance 
is the ability or power to will. And from such language 
taken by itself it might be argued that power is not re- 
quirable or predicable of the corporiety. Ability, in the 
strict application, would belong to Will alone. A thing 
is then held to be in a man's power, provided there is 
power in the Will, just because the full possession of the 
corporeal power is quietly presupposed. Really and 
truly, then, power or ability, with all the cognate terms, 
as can, possible, able, etc., is as truly affirmable or de- 
niable of Will as of any other part of our nature. 

What gives all the plausibility to the notion that ability 
or power is affirmable or deniable of the post- Mostcom- 
volitional or voluntary act solely, and not of most proper 

, ,. . * t in -i t .-» sense of 

the volitional act, is the tact that men have tar words. 
more occasion to speak of what they can do if they will 
than what they ca& will.* Practically men much oftener 
discuss their power to execute than their power to 
choose. And they are so constantly in this position of 
silently assuming their power to will, and requiring and 
predicating the power of the corporeal or post-volitional 
alone, that Edwards and other necessitarian metaphysi- 
cians stand up and most unwisely say that ability has no 
proper predicability of Will at all. 

The definitions thus far given embrace the following 
Postulates : 

1. Not every cause is inalternative or unipotent, that 
is, possessed of power to no other than one sole effect. 

2. Causes, in reference to possible and actual effects, 

* See p. 254. 



56 THE ISSUE STATED. 

are either adequate or resultant. A volitional cause may 
be adequate to an effect, yet that effect not result ; it is, 
therefore, to that effect, not a resultant cause. This dif- 
ference relates not so much to the nature of the cause as 
to the fact of the sequence. 

3. Non-existence of a volitional effect is not absolute 
proof of non-existence of volitional power in the agent 
for that effect. 

4. Non-exertion of power is not identical with non-ex- 
istence of power. 

5. The physical effect is always the measure of the in- 
trinsic physical causality ; but the volitional effect is not 
the measure of the intrinsic power, causation, or object- 
ive influence. 

These postulates may be shaped in the following anti- 
thetic 

CANONS 
Of non-volitional or necessary causa- Of volitional or non-necessary causa- 
tion, tion. 

I. Every actual non- volitional I. Every actual volitional event 
event has its necessary cause. has its resultant cause. 

II. Every necessary cause is II. Every volitional cause is al- 
unipotent, that is, has its own ternative, that is, has either of 
solely possible effect. several effects possible. 

III. Every non-volitional event III. Noa-occurring volitions do 
which fails to happen fails to hap- not prove non-existence of ade- 
pen for want of a cause. For quate cause. Not for every no- 
every no-event there is a no-cause. . volition is there a no-adequate 

cause. 
IY. The effect is the absolute IY. The result is the measure 
measure of the intrinsic power of of merely the assignable * power 
the cause or influence. of the adequate cause or influence. 

The phrase " exertion of power," as used in our fourth 
Exertion of Postulate, when employed by Dr. Reid, under- 
power. went the following criticism of the younger 
Edwards : " To exert power to a volition supposes a double 
act, the exertion and the volition. But the exertion is an 
effect, and requires a causal act. And that causal act is 
*Seep. 134, 



FREEDOM OF WILL CAUSATIONALLY PRESENTED. 57 

an effect requiring its causal act, and so in infinite series." 
But the act, and the exertion of the power for the act, 
are not two independent acts or effects. Every exer 

act is performed in the exertion of the power separate a ef. 
for the act. The exertion of the power is the fect * 
drawing upon the energy which the act requires, in order 
to its performance. It is the manner or condition 
through which- the act is performed. The phrase is a 
statement of the relation which the performance of the 
act bears to the inherent power. 

Of the term Certainty, the etymology (certus is de- 
rived from cerno=«p^w, I adjudge) shows that its pri- 
mary meaning is subjective. It exists in the mind rather 
than in the object. When my judgment of the reality of 
an externality is so firm as to be exempt from all doubt, 
there is a mental certainty. The certainty is none the 
less real though the object turn out to have been unreal. 
That is, I may be perfectly certain of a thing and yet be 
mistaken. 

Objective certainty is the external actuality corre- 
sponding to and verifying a correct subjective certainty. 
The actuality or object may be also a necessary object ; 
nevertheless its certainty and its necessity are none the 
less different things. The thing may be necessary by 
the simple necessity of existence ; but the ideas of its 
necessity and its certainty are two distinct ideas. By its 
certainty it is able to correspond and answer to the 
mind's reliance that it is so ; by its necessity it is unable 
to non-exist. Mere mental certainty cognizes that a 
thing £s, not that it must be. To cognize its necessity 
requires a pure intuity over and beyond the simple per- 
ception that it is. 

Pure certainty in a future event is the futurition of 
the event, implying simply that while power Certainty of 
exists for it not to be, it yet ultimately will be. future evenfc * 
For it is plain that in this there is no contradiction. If 



58 THE ISSUE STATED. 

of several possible events one will be, then the certainty 
is nothing more than just that will-be. And surely the 
supposition that several events are possible does not con- 
tradict the idea that one of them will, in the ultimate, 
become actual. Nor does the fact that one will be con- 
tradict the idea that several are possible. It differs from 
necessity in that the latter negatives the idea of diverse 
alternative or plural possibilities. Objective certainty of 
a future event is the futurition or will-be of the event. 
Subjective certainty is the conception or view in the 
mind of that objective pure futurition or simple will-be. 
The future objective certainty of a free volitional act, 
being a pure will-be without the must-be, has no degrees. 
Subjective ^ w ^-^ e cannot be more or less certain. But 

certainty. ^e corresponding pure subjective certainty, 
perfect and without degrees, the human mind does not 
possess. Credence or reliance is the more proper term for 
our subjective view of a non-necessitated futurition. To 
mere humanity there is no objective certainty in a free 
volitional future event. Perfect subjective certainty cor- 
responding to the pure objective, which among diverse 
possibilities will be, belongs to the divine prescience 
alone. 

Certainty, as above defined and distinguished from ne- 
Correiative cessity, is the conceivable correlative of an al- 

of free wiii. ternative will. It is the proper predicate or 
epithet for that volition which will in a given case be 
put forth by a will by definition able to put forth other 
instead. They reciprocally presuppose each other. He 
who cannot admit that volition can be put forth with full 
power to have withheld it cannot conceive of simple 
certainty. With him certainty is necessity. His will-be 
is a must-be. The result is fatalism. 

Some leading philosophers have rejected the term and 
certainty not the idea of causation, and have substituted in 

ofinvari- its place an Invariable Sequence, which is as 

able Sue- . * ; . . ^ 

cession. reliable in their view as the continuity of causa- 



EDWARDS'S SYNTHESIS OF DEFINITIONS. 59 

tion. The connection in such case of antecedents and 
consequents is therefore properly held to be as inevitable 
as the connection of causes and effects. The Law of In- 
variability is here as absolute as the Law of Causation, 
and chance or Atheism would as soon follow the suppo 
sition of failure in one as in the other. The connection 
is, therefore, not a connection of certainty, but of neces- 
sity. Where such an Invariability exists it contradicts 
and excludes all idea of failure, or possible variation, 
or power of alternativity, or contrariety. Absolute uni- 
versal invariability, invariability as axiomatic as causal 
succession, is in contradiction with power of exception 
or alteriety.* 



CHAPTER V. 

EDWAEDS'S SYNTHESIS OF DEFINITIONS EEVIEWED. 

A docteinal scheme may be framed with a set of defini- 
tions dovetailed into each other with so exact a Systematic 
mutual fit, that the very coherency and struc- definitions - 
tural exactness of the system of terms may seem to 
demonstrate the truth and solidity of the doctrine ; and 
yet each definition may covertly so include more than 
truth, or an essential idea may be so excluded from the 
synthesis, that the doctrine may be imperfect or false. 
The terms must not only exactly fit each other and 
form a doctrinal structure, but they must fit the truth of 
things ; and they must, without omission, include and fit 
to everything requisite to the true and complete synthesis. 
By transgression of these principles Edwards's synthe- 
sis of definitions becomes an artificial framework in which 
the whole question in debate is anticipatively assumed. 
*Seep. 231. 



60 THE ISSUE STATED. 

By that synthesis necessity is held and defined as 
Edwards's as- com P r ehending and identical with all existing 
by m d P efini- s relations ; certainty is identical with necessity ; 
tlon ' and contingency is held equivalent to chance, 

to no cause, and so is excluded as absurdity. Now the 
very question being whether all relations are necessary ; 
whether all certain futuritions are necessary futuritions ; 
and whether contingency is not a valid idea of the under- 
standing ; a cool assumption of the result in definitions 
must be exposed by an analysis of the nomenclature. 

I. Edwards, first, rejects a true and adequate definition 
of Necessity. "Here I might say that a thing is then said 
to be necessary when it must be, and cannot be other- 
wise. But this would not properly be a definition of 
necessity or an explanation of the word any more than if 
I explained the word must by there being a necessity. 
The words must, can, and cannot, need explanation as 
much as the words necessary and impossible, excepting 
that the former are words that children commonly use, 
we know something of the meaning of, earlier than the 
latter."— P. 30. 

We reply, 1. There is no more true test of a definition 
Definition than this, that it reproduce in the mind the 

produces the , , • •i*»'i-»».i t 

idea. clear and precise idea lor which the term stands. 

That the definition be in words so familiar that it create 
the idea, even in the minds of children, is a real perfection. 
It is a decided proof of the universality and indestruct- 
ibleness of the idea as defined. It is fair ground of sus- 
picion against a theory that it discards the clear for the 
obscure. Moral philosophers, after a world of recondite 
explication, find that no term or definition more clearly 
creates in the mind the precise idea of moral obligation 
than the verb ought, and have even found for this pur- 
pose the awkward noun oughtness a most expressive for- 
mation. Just so may we say that certainty or simple 
Necessity is futurition has no better designation than simple 

must/ness. WILL _ BE . an( j necessity cannot find in all Ian- 



EDWARDS'S SYNTHESIS OF DEFINITIONS. 61 

guage a simpler or more unmistakable exponent than 
the terms must, must-be, mustness. 

Perfectly untrue is the assertion that must as much 
needs a definition as necessity ; since must in every mind 
creates the exact idea. This fact is acknowledged even 
in faulting the term, and is the very charge brought 
against it. It is the obscurer term which always needs 
defining, and of which the plainer term is the definition, 
and the plainest the best. And if so, the only word in 
the language which can precisely define ?iecessity is must, 
and this neither needs nor can receive a definition except 
by a synonymous word or phrase. 

Equally inadmissible, therefore, is the objection that must 
may be defined by necessity as well as necessity ^tertian e- 
by must. All words are interchangeable with f^^ef- 
their definitions ; all words and their definitions inition - 
mutually define each other. Associate with a word its 
synonymous formula, and that to any given mind will be 
the definition which is best understood. Even Edwards's 
definition of necessity will be found to be better defined 
by the word than the word by the definition. 

II. Edwards next propounds a definition which gets 
no further than the definition rejected. 

If, however, clearness to a plain or childlike mind be a 
fault in a definition, the definition of necessity, by Ed- 
wards, is in this respect to a high degree unobjection- 
able. "Philosophical necessity" he says, "is really 
nothing else than the full and fixed connection between 
the thing signified by the subject and predicate of a prop- 
osition which affirms something to be true." 

Edwards certainly does not here say what he means. 
He surely cannot mean that necessity is the connection 
itself, but a quality of the connection. The connection 
is a necessary or fixed connection. The connection and 
the fixedness or necessity are two things. The necessity 
is to be found as a property in the idea or reality of the 
connection. 



62 THE ISSUE STATED. 

This is not so much definition as exemplification. 
It does not so much tell us what necessity is as where 
Edwards io- it may be found. What it is may still be a 

defines. dark question ; for it may not be so easy at a 
glance to tell by description or synonymous terms exactly 
what the necessity is which resides in the connection be- 
tween subject and predicate. Nor is the darkness much 
illumined by the adjectives "full and fixed" unless 
fixed means necessary, which forces us into the circle of 
definiting a thing by itself. Edwards, however, aids our 
difficulty by subdividing into three heads his exemplifi- 
cation of this necessity in connection, namely, 1. " Things 
Three classes ma 7 ^e connected in and of themselves as 

ofnecessity. mathematical relations, etc. 2. Necessity may 
exist in the connection between a thing and its existence. 
3. Necessity may exist between cause and effect" Now 
the various expressions designating the necessary element 
under these three heads form his real definition of 
the thing, as may be seen by the following exhibit. 
1. "Things have a necessary connection in and of 
themselves, because it may imply a contradiction or 
gross absurdity to suppose them not connected" "It 
would be the greatest absurdity to deny" "the sum of 
all contradictions" " it is necessary" "fit, and suitable" 
Under this head come mathematical and all self-evident 
truths. These are the only definitions or equivalents of 
the necessary element which Edwards furnishes in the 
first head of exemplification. 2. The connection with ex- 
istence of a thing which has already come to pass, and can 
never not-be, "may be fixed and certain" "made sure" 
Necessity of " ma( ^ e certain and unalterably true" "fixed and 

past fact, decided" "impossible that it should be other- 
wise" These phrases are the real designations of necessity 
in the second. 3. Connection of antecedent with conse- 
Necessity of <l uent 5 or cause and effect, by which the latter 

consequent. ig neC essary "consequentially." This is "a 
necessity of consequence." Under this head all so-called 



EDWARDS'S SYNTHESIS OF DEFINITIONS. 63 

" certain " events are by him ranked ; * that is, all future 
events, including all acts of the Will, and it is upon this 
necessity rests the great debate. Cause and effect are 
"firmly and surely connected" "fully and thoroughly" 
"made sure." After having rejected the simple must as 
too childish for a definition, Edwards gives a list of de- 
scriptives like these ! 

After having rejected the ordinary definition as a mere 
interchangeable equivalent,' he furnishes noth- Defines by 
ing as a substitute but a catalogue of synonyms. s y non y ms - 
They get not one hair's breadth beyond the simple 
must. And what is more to our purpose, there is not 
one in his circle of identities which goes one hair's 
breadth beyond our definition, that u necessity is the 
non-existence of power to be or operate otherwise" but is 
the quality of what " must be ;" and " that it should be 
otherwise involves contradictions," and so it is "fixed," 
"made sure" etc. 

"The fixed and full connection" between the signifi- 
cate of a subject and predicate, he tells us, is necessity, 
or at least has necessity for a quality. But every con- 
nection is a full connection ; for that which is only a 
part of a connection is less than a connection, and so no 
connection at all. Full, therefore, is superfluous, and 
may be omitted. Looking, then, between the subject 
and predicate we find that necessity is just fixed con- 
nection, or rather the fixedness of the connection. So 
that necessity is fixedness. By whoni or by what fixed 
is not said. But if we can conceive a connection, and 
then conceive that connection to be fixed, and then can 

* Those who claim for Edwards a maintenance of a certainty of future 
acts of the Will as distinct from necessity will please here take note. 
Edwards expressly maintains, in his chapter on Foreknowledge, that 
the necessity of every future event foreknown, whether volition or 
mechanical effect, comes under as strict a necessity as a past act; and a 
past act, he here says, having "made sure" of its existence, is neces- 
sary in itself. Of a future and a past event alike he affirms that their 
necessity consists "in the present impossibility of non-existence of the 
event."— Edwards on the Will, p. 181. 



64 THE ISSUE STATED. 

isolate its fixedness, we shall have shaped to our mental 
Gets no fur- view the Edwardean notion of necessity. Ask 
opponents. Edwards at last what necessary means, and he 
can only answer, "fixed," "made sure," "fixed and 
certain," " sure and firm," " contradiction to be supposed 
otherwise," etc. 

This definition nevertheless assumes, in the next place, 
ah relations the necessity of all known actual relations. 
necessary, Things between which any relations or connec- 
tions actually exist, may be the subject and predicate of 
a proposition affirming something to be true. When 
there is such a connection, according to Edwards, then 
the thing affirmed is necessary. Let the subject, for 
instance, be a modest man, and the predicate be is to 
commit a future murder ; if the copula be affirmatively 
true, the futurition it seems is necessary. Now this is 
denied. The connection of the man with the future 
murder, even though he by action ultimately proves its 
affirmation true, is not a necessary connection. The 
logical copula then simply expresses certainty. That is, 
it gives notice to the mind to feel that repose which is 
consistent with the view of a futurition which, 
while there exists power for it not to occur, 
will occur. And this is not necessity. The definition, 
therefore, is false. 

III. Edwards next, for a purpose, overstates the differ- 
ence between the popular and the philosophical use of 
the terms. 

" The word necessary," says Edwards, " is a relative 

term, and relates to some supposed opposition made to 

the thing spoken of, which is overcome, and proves in 

. L vain to hinder or alter it. That is, necessary, 

All necessity u ' J 7 

bf u agctin8t * n tne or ig ma l an( l proper use of the word, 
wm - which is, or will be, notwithstanding all sup- 

posable opposition" — P. 31. ". . . We are accus- 
tomed, in the common use of language, to apply and 
understand these phrases in this sense, etc. And if we 



EDWARDS'S SYNTHESIS OF DEFINITIONS. 65 

use the words as terms of art, . . . this habit- Fallacioua 
ual connection of ideas will deceive and con- transfer - 
found us in our reasonings," etc. — P. 32. 

The purpose for which Edwards asserts this relative 
meaning of the word, and expatiates on its inveterate 
influence, is to provide a reply at the set time to the 
Arminian objection against the moral responsibility of a 
necessary action. Men bring to volitional necessity, he 
will tell us, the notion, long established by confounding 
habit, of necessity or compulsion against the Sfthc S om- 
Will, and thus attribute to necessary volition pulsion * 
that irresponsibility which belongs to compulsory invol- 
untary action. 

But the. importance attributed by Edwards to the 
plurality of meanings of the word necessity, impossi- 
bility, etc., is excessive and capricious. Pew words in 
any language are absolutely single in meaning; there is 
no reason assignable why the different meanings of these 
words should be so strangely and inveterately undis- 
tinguishable. 

Edwards's account both of the " original and proper 
sense of the word," and of the " proper use of language," 
as having some reference to an opposed Will, is, however, 
wholly incorrect. Reference to an opposed Will is, in 
the large majority of its applications, in the popular as 
well as the philosophical, so accidental or so remote as 
to form no proper characteristic of the word. 

1. The "original and proper sense " of the word may 
be in some degree tested by its etymology. If the 
derivation be correct which deduces it from RadicalsenSQ 
ne and cedo, its primitive meaning is unyield- ofnecessit y- 
ingness. Now a thing may be unyielding to a Will or to 
a thousand other things. A rock may be unyielding to 
the waves, a tower to the storm, the clay to the sun. A 
Will itself- may be unyielding to something else, as a 
temptation or an obstacle. 

5 



66 THE ISSUE STATED. 

2. Nor has the u common use" of the word any proper 
reference to an opposed Will. In its most ordinary use 
Most com- tne word necessary is equivalent to requisite — 
Sos\ US proS?i requisite to an end. Thus, light is necessary 

to day; heat is necessary to the fusion of 
metals ; moisture is necessary to vegetable growth ; air is 
necessary to animal life. The necessity in such cases is 
the necessity of condition to result, and exists whether 
Will be involved or not. In these cases quoted there is 
little or no reference to Will, and that little is rather to 
Will accordant than to Will opposed. Nine-tenths of all 
its popular uses are of this nature, and bear no ref- 
erence to voluntary opposition. 

3. Popular language approaches more nearly the phil- 
osophical meaning in the words impossible and camiot 
than in the word necessary. They have, too, a more fre- 
quent reference to opposed Will. Frequently we say we 
cannot do a thing however much we loill it. And 
things are impossible to us in the same sense. Yet 
Edwards states, far too unqualifiedly, that " impossible is 
manifestly a relative term, and has reference to supposed 
power exerted- to bring a thing to pass which is insuffi- 
cient for the effect." Strictly in accordance with the 
philosophical sense excluding all reference to opposed 
will or exerted voluntary power, a man of common sense 
would use these terms in phrases like these : it is impos- 
sible that nothing should produce something; a thing 
cannot be and not be at the same time ; it is impos- 
Necessitative s ^ e f° r tw0 an< ^ two to be five ; it is im- 

SyingoV possible that space and substance should 
posed will. k e identical; it is impossible that two mo- 
ments of time should change their order of succes- 
sion. These and thousands of other instances which 
might be quoted wholly excluding any antithesis to Will, 
amply prove that such a meaning is perfectly familiar to 
common language, and the idea perfectly familiar to the 
common mind. They also show that between necessity 



EDWARDS'S SYNTHESIS OF DEFINITIONS. 67 

without any reference to Will, and compulsion against 
Will, there is no affinity which perplexes the most ordi- 
nary mind to distinguish. 

IV. Edwards lastly identifies certainty with necessity. 
"Metaphysical or philosophical necessity is nothing dif- 
ferent from (objective) certainty." That statement, we 
reply, can be true only on the assumption Falseide ntifi- 
that certainty is a synonym with necessity. cessity 0f and 
Edwards's metaphysical necessity is, as will certamty * 
appear in due time,* the necessity of a fact whose 
diverse is impossible, is unthinkable, is infinitely 
contradictory and self-explosive, is a causeless effect. 
If there be a certainty different from necessity, this is not 
that certainty, but necessity. If necessity and certainty 
are synonyms, the statement is nugatory; if not, it is 
untrue. The real fact is abundantly evident that with 
Edwards certainty and necessity were essential synonyms, 
the former being occasionally called in as the less repuls- 
ive term. When he says that any necessity is nothing 
more than certainty, he means not the Arminian's cer- 
tainty but the necessitarian's certainty, which is indeed 
necessity. The proper subject of the epithet necessary \ 
and so of both terms, is, according to his words, as 
quoted in our first extract in this chapter, that which 
"must be and cannot be otherwise;" a definition 
which he condemns, not as untrue, but as a mere con- 
vertible. 

Contingent, according to Edwards, implies that an 
event is accidental, in the sense that its con- contingency, 
nection with its cause being unknown, its Edwards. 
occurrence is unforeseen. "But the word contingent ," 
Edwards adds, u is abundantly used in a very different 
sense ; not for that whose connection with the series of 
things we cannot discern so as to foresee the event, but 
for something which has absolutely no ground (cause) 
or reason with which its existence has any fixed and 
* See p. 221. 



68 THE ISSUE STATED. 

certain connection." If this means that any anti-necessi- 
Faiseiy im- tarian writers use the word contingent in the 

freedomists. sense of causeless, we know not, nor does Ed- 
wards inform us, who those writers are. But we 
venture to imagine that Edwards imputes to them 
rather the meaning which their views seemed to him 
to involve, than that which they consciously affixed to 
the word. Our own use of the word appears in its 
proper place.* 

The very nomenclature, therefore, of Edwards, as a 
whole, excludes freedom at start. Certainty=necessity 
is one side; contingency=no-cause=chance=zero is on 
False assump. tne °ther. The two embrace all eventuality 

tions. without any intermediate, and freedom is 

nowhere. And when the exigency of the debate com- 
pels him to get up and define a freedom, then free- 
dom=the absolute subjection of being and action to the 
causations of necessity. 



CHAPTEE VI. 



CONDITIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF WILL'S FREE 
ACTION. 

When we say that Will, or the self in willing, is 
sole cause of its own volitions, there is, nevertheless, one 
clause properly to be superadded, and always to be 
implied, namely, Will, in its proper conditions. And 
wni in its tn * s l ea ^s to the discussion of the conditions 
conditions. or occas i ons an( j limitations of free action of 
Will. 

The necessitarian insists that there is no consistent 

Are cause an( ^ maintainable difference between cause and 

Son differ- occasion or secondary condition. Edwards 

says of cause : " The word is often used in so 

* See p. 135. 



CONDITIONS OF WILL'S FREE ACTION. 69 

restrained a sense as to signify that only which has a 
positive efficiency or influence to produce a thing or 
bring it to pass. But there are many things which have 
no such positive productive influences, which yet are 
causes." He instances as real causes the Denied by 
absence of preventives. The absence of the Edwards - 
sun is a cause of the falling dew in summer, and of the 
freezing streams in winter. Mr. Mill, in his Logic, 
maintains the same doctrine, including the 
absence of preventives under the term cause. 
He further adds : " The state of the whole universe at any 
instant we believe to be the consequent of its state at 
the previous instant ; insomuch that if we knew all the 
agents which exist at the present moment, their collo- 
cation in space and their properties, in other words, 
the laws of their agency, we could predict the whole 
subsequent history of the universe." — P. 199. From which 
it would seem to result, that every previous thing is 
the cause of every subsequent thing, and everything 
that does not exist is the cause of everything that does 
exist ! 

So far, however, as Will is concerned, perhaps a clear 
and permanent distinction may be drawn between cause 
and condition. The only difficulty of distinguishing 
subsidiary occasion or condition from cause arises from 
the fact that from different stand-points differ- D ifference 
ent antecedents become principal and cause; affirmed - 
so that cause and condition are ever exchanging place 
with each other. Thus, of the death of Cesar, from one 
stand-point, a man may say that the sword of Brutus 
was the cause, and all other antecedents were conditions. 
From another stand-point another man may say that 
Cesar's ambition was the cause; another that a con- 
spiracy of senators was the cause, and all other ante- 
cedents were conditions. 

Where, however, there is a kind of cause, simple and 
elemental in its nature, whose direct and immediate 



70 THE ISSUE STATED. 

And shown effect is also always of one and the same sim- 
wui. pie and elementary sort, and is produced solely 

by that single species of cause, that cause may be 
always considered as sole cause, and all accessories as 
secondary conditions. Will is such a cause and volition 
is such an effect. Will is a simple elementary cause, 
directly productive of the simple elementary effect 
volition alone, and of nothing else ; and volition is the 
simple, elementary, and sole result of Will alone. Of 
volition Will is sole cause ; of Will volition is sole 
effect. All other antecedents are conditions, in accord- 
ance with whose existence Will causatively acts. If, 
therefore, we have drawn an invariable line of dis- 
tinction between Will as cause of volition and all other 
Ambiguity antecedents of volition, we are freed from all 
cleared. ambiguity of an ever-varying sense of the 
word cause. 

A condition may be defined as that attendant upon 
a condition, tne di rec t cause without whose existence the 
what? cause is not to be conceived as resultant, but 
with whose existence the cause is still conceivably non- 
resultant. A condition enables but does not secure re- 
sult. A volitional cause, or Will itself, does not differ from 
a volitional condition in the certainty or necessity of the 
result; for the cause or agent potential to causation 
may exist and the result not eventuate. The difference 
is that the volitional cause is always one, namely, Will, 
and produces the act by direct power resident in itself; 
whereas the motives are of variable nature, and only 
indirectly related to the result. 

The conditions of all volitional action may be reck- 

Three condi- one( % io oe theee, an Object or direction of 

tions - action, Mental Comprehension, and Motive. 

1. There can be no action, and therefore no volition 

without an Object. The direct object of the 

volition is properly the postvolitional act 

which the volition produces ; but there can be no volition 



CONDITIONS OF WILL'S FREE ACTION. 71 

without also an object, or at least direction of the post- 
volitional act. 

2. Mental Comprehension is a condition; by which 
we mean that the objects and sphere of action 2 C ompre- 
must be within the knowledge, the recollection, henslon -. 
and the reach of the attention. A volition for an incon- 
ceivable action, an unknowable direction, or for an un- 
knowable action, is impossible. In order to choice, 
the alternatives of choice must be before the mental 
view. 

3. Motive is usually considered as a condition to the 
possibility of a volition by the Will ; that is, it is fre- 
quently affirmed that men never act without motive. It 
may be conceded that motive is a usual antecedent to 
volition, but the strict universality of the antecedency 
may be doubted. The true principle will be found stated 
on page 139. The motive is that on account of which, 
(propter,) or in accordance with which, a volition 

is put forth. But, as with the word cause, so 
w T ith the word motive, an extension is often made in the 
use beyond the definition. The motive is not only actual 
but potential. It is not only that in view of which the vo- 
lition is put forth, but that in view of which the volition 
is able to be put forth. The motive is usually some 
quality in or attendant upon the object of volition by 
which it commends itself to the faculty of the mind 
other than the Will. Thus the pleasant flavor of an apple 
is that quality in the object why it is chosen. 

The motive maybe considered as objective or subjective. 
The sweetness, as existing in the apple, is the 0bjective 
objective motive; the sweetness, as a concep- f e n ctile b " 
tion in the mind, is the subjective motive. Or mot,ve - 
even the feeling of desire, awakened by the flavor, may 
be considered as the subjective motive. 

It is from the motive that the direct object of the vo- 
lition normally draws its elisribilitv by which Motive and 

. , 11. -r • \ i i ob J ect ^ 

it becomes the object. It is not the bare ob- one. 



72 THE ISSUE STATED. 

ject itself which is willed, but the object as invested with 
the motivity borrowed from the collateral motive. Hence, 
it is not far from truth to say that it is the motivity in 
the object which is essentially chosen and is the real ob- 
ject. Thus, if I choose a rose from the motive of its 
sweetness, it is the sweetness in the rose which is most 
truly chosen, and the other constituents of the rose are 
chosen as embodying, or attached to that motivity. If I 
choose to walk into the garden for the same motive, 
every step is willed as embracing the same motivity, and 
not one step would be taken which is not invested with 
that motivity. Hence, the motive is chosen in the choice 
of the object. The choice of the object and of the motive 
is one and the same thing. 

Subjective The Will may be Subjectively, and in its 

wftlobjec- own intrinsic nature, free, while Objectively it 

tive unfree- i i • • i i • i 

dom. may be limited and necessitated. 

1. There may be no external motives in a given di- 
rection. So a person may be objectively incapable of sin 
from the absence of all temptation. He may be object- 
ively unfree to good, and so be wholly depraved because 
he is out of reach of a single attractive object of good. 
When there are no motives within reach, save in one 
direction, the Will may be objectively unfree. 

2. There may be but one external object or direction, 
actual and known, of action, and so of volition. In such 
a case the Will, though its intrinsic nature is unchanged, 
and is truly in its proper conditions free, yet is objectively 
circumscribed and rendered unfree. It can act but in 
one sole possible way. Objective volitional freedom re- 
quires external plurality or alternatives. But when 
there are two possible courses, non-action may be in fact 
a third course. 

We have then here the limitations by which the free- 
dom of the human Will is circumscribed. There can be 
no direction of volitional action which is not within the 
mental view, under the possible mental attention, and> 



CONDITIONS OF WILL'S FREE ACTION. 73 

normally, also, commended by motive. When, therefore, 
we say that a free Will puts forth a volition with full 
power otherwise, we are always to understand conditions 
it with ^qualification, namely, a free Will in supposed. 
its proper conditions. 

This remark obviates the misunderstanding of the 
Younger Edwards, who supposes that we imagine 
that the volitional faculty accounts for a volition 
without any postulate of conditional circumstances. 
" The man who is the subject of a certain volition had 
the power of Will long since, yet it never pro- Younger Ed- 

r , , ,. . ° .,, , . wards's ob- 

duced that volition, we may suppose, till this jection. 
moment. What is the cause or reason that it produces 
it now and not before? To say it does it, because it 
will, is to say either that this volition is produced by 
another preceding, which runs into the infinite series, or 
that the power of Will, or rather the man in the exercise 
of that power, is the subject of volition, which is mere 
trifling. On the whole, the existence of a power of Will 
in a man will no more account for any particular volition 
of which he is the subject, than the existence of the man 
will account for the same volition, or the existence of a 
ship-carpenter will account for the building of a certain 
ship." — Works, vol. ii, p. 332. But, like all other causes, 
a volitional agent, in order to become an 
adequate and resultant cause, needs to be 
placed in the proper causal conditions. The powder 
causes the flash, but not until the spark is applied. 
So the volitional agent cannot will until the objects 
and the alternatives of volition are before his view. 
He then becomes an adequate cause for either of the 
alternatives that may result. The carpenter cannot 
build the ship until the object, motives, and alternatives 
are before him. But the objects and alternatives no 
more cause his volitions than the ship creates the 
carpenter. 

It need not be denied that motive is sometimes called 



74 THE ISSUE STATED. 

Motive knd ca^ae, an ^ tnat words are used both as nouns 
cause, an( ^ verbs, implying a causative relation be- 

tween the supplying of motives and the complying act 
that results. It is often said of a man, This^nade him 
do thus ; that induced him to act differently. A tempter 
or seducer who furnishes motives to sin, in compliance 
with which destruction is incurred, is said to cause the 
sin and the destruction, to involve in guilt, and to ruin 
the victim. A person who supplies instructions and 
in popular motives to good which, followed, result in ex- 
language. cellence and happiness, is said to cause the ex- 
cellence and to produce the happiness. This is said with 
that popular looseness which belongs to the word cause, 
and to most causative terms. It arises from the external 
relation of antecedency and sequence, which present the 
obvious objective appearance of true causation. This 
popular use does not assume to decide anything as to the 
intrinsic psychological nature of the relation. Yet how 
Motive and truly consciousness distinguishes between mo- 
reason. tives and causes (or between the two classes 
of causes) is clear, from the fact that a man seldom says 
that a motive " caused me to do thus" or that such or 
such was the " cause why I choose thus." Every man as- 
signs not a cause, but a reason why he wills a given way. 
And if any one truly interrogates consciousness, why he 
rejects the word, it will be difficult for him to refuse to 
answer that the word cause is too mechanically necessi- 
tative a word, or not to feel that there is a conscious 
difference between a cause and a reason for action. 

The sense of responsibility, too, is grounded upon the 
assumption of this difference. When the tempter presents 
the motive before his victim which he accepts to his own 
Tempter and rurn 5 tQe offerer of the motive is a sharer of the 
victim. guilt. Yet, strictly speaking, he is not sharer 
in the guilt of the victim's act. Each party is responsible 
for himself and for his own act : the tempter for his 
presentation of the motive, the victim for his acting in 



ANTERIOR STANDARD OF ACCORDANCE. 75 

compliance with it. The heinousness of the act is indeed 
to a degree a measure of the aggravation of the tempt- 
ing presentation, especially where it was legitimately cal- 
culable and so intentional. Yet the seduced sinner is 
not the less completely responsible for the full enormity 
of his compliant crime, on the plain principle that the 
motive did not necessitate the act ; that the motives being 
all the same, he could have willed wholly otherwise; 
and that the full causation of the deed took a needlessly 
effectual origin in himself. And this brings us back to the 
axiom of universal common sense, that the sin taking its 
primordial origin unnecessarily from the free agent, the 
agent is, therefore, wholly and solely respon- Their distinct 
sible. For the proper act the responsibility, bmties. 
as well as the unnecessary causation, takes beginning 
with himself; nor is it derived from, nor does it reflect 
back upon, the tempter or the creator. The tempter has, 
indeed, his own crime to answer for. The Creator has 
none. 

Not only of individual volitions, but of the course 
of large masses of men we assign causes. We Historical 
find causes of events in history; and these causes - 
causes are simply motives that act in common on the 
totality of individual Wills. In these so-called causes 
necessitative and volitional elements variously blend. 
So far as they are purely and alternatively volitional 
they are not necessitative. 



CHAPTEE YII. 

ANTERIOR STANDARD OF ACCORDANCE. 

After exterior freedom has been defined to be the 
" power of doing as we will," both the freedom- The volition 

. , , . , . ,. t . as some an- 

lst and the necessitarian are much inclined in a tecedent. 



76 THE ISSUE STATED. 

similar way to define the freedom of the Will to be " the 
power of choosing as" — something. The volition, for- 
sooth, is as the last dictate of the understanding ; as the 
greatest apparent good; as the choice, wish, inclination, 
bias, or making up of the mind; as the sum total or 
balance of the entire anterior man; as the strongest 
motive; as it pleases. Each and all alike of these for- 
Faiiadous niula3 may be used to fasten the Will with an 
phrases. - lYon link to an iron pillar. The simple truth 
is that the volition is not as any one thing whatever of a 
single anterior fixed nature. 

These formulae, which have served the purposes of ne- 
used by cessitarianism so well, were nevertheless, some 
freedomists Q j? tnenl) originally used pertinently by freedom- 
ists themselves to indicate the idea of free 
volitionality. That the agent "chooses as he pleases," 
has an obvious sense quite different from "chooses as 
he is pleased" The former has an active free look 
which suggested a freedom which it does not quite un- 
equivocally express. Necessitarianism, in its habit of 
appropriating terms which have an exterior show of 
freedom with an interior necessity in them, has availed 
itself of this formula to mitigate verbally the hardness 
of its dogma. The formula that one chooses as he 
pleases may mean simply, and was used by freedom- 
ists to mean, that the Will chooses accordantly with 
some, or any, previously perceived choosableness or 
eligibility; with some motive, that is, though- not a 
solely possible. The phrase "pleases" may designate 
any, or either one of several favorable views in favor 
of which the Will alternatively and independently of 
causation or invariability chooses. In such cases the 
free Will accorded with a particular motive uncaused 
by any controlling power, just as itself self-determi- 
nantly "pleased" Each motive or anterior favorable 
view for either one of several courses furnishes you 
an "as you please;" the volition in favor of either 



ANTERIOR STANDARD OF ACCORDANCE. 77 

motive would be "a choosing as you please;" by that 
very accordance it becomes the preferred motive, the 
strongest motive, the prevalent motive, the what you 
think best, the greatest apparent good, etc., etc. Simi- 
larly necessitarianism has appropriated to its own fatal- 
istic sense the formula that the volitional power wills as 
it wills. Both these formulae, when used by freedomists 
as phrases of freedom, mean to exclude every extra- 
neous necessitation or law of invariability to a sole voli- 
tion, and to affirm that the source of the Will's action is 
its own self-contained, independent power. The Will, 
thereby, it is said, wills not as something else wills or 
causes it to will, but by its own intrinsic alternative 
power; it wills as itself alone wills or pleases. In this 
last term wills, the very unnecessitated free forthgoing 
of the act, unlike act of any other cause, was intuitively 
recognized by the speaker as intrinsic in its very con- 
ception. This recognition of intrinsic free spontaneity, 
in contrast with the inalternativity of mechanical action, 
in the very conception of Will induced also the phrase 
that the agent acted as he willed or pleased ; a phrase- 
ology used by the ancient writers with the unquestion- 
able purpose of excluding the idea of unitary necessita- 
tion. But the necessitarians caught at the Necessitarian 
phrase, wills as it pleases, and interpreted it to catch - 
mean duplicate volitions ad infinitum; and the phrases 
have been abandoned. Over this abandonment necessi- 
tarians indulge a jubilation. "The old advocates of the 
self-determining power," says Dr. Pond, " used to admit 
freely that the mind chooses because it will And disuse 
choose; it puts forth voluntary" (volitional) ists. 
" exercises, because it will put them forth. But our mod- 
ern defenders of this kind of liberty have grown more 
wary. They are afraid, as they well may be, of Jonathan 
Edwards." And, doubtless, as the pillaging process goes 
on, by which necessitarians capture, through special defini- 
tions, the nomenclature of freedom, not only the terms 



78 THE ISSUE STATED. 

freedom, self-determination, but any words or phrases 
we can invent, as alternativity, counter power, etc., may- 
be loaded with a fatalistic meaning and compelled to 
surrender. We may then be " wary " and chary of their 
use, and task our power to invent new unequivocalities, 
which in turn may have to undergo the same dextrous 
verbal petit larcenies. 

So Origen is quoted by Edwards from Whitby as say- 
origen's ing " the soul acts by her own choice, and it is 
freedom. free for her to incline to whatever part she 
will" With Origen for the soul thus to " incline " or 
will as she wills, is to will independently of any anterior 
necessitation, or of anything but the Will. Thus also Justin 
Martyr is quoted by Whitby as saying, " We Christians 
do not think as do the Stoics, that all things are done ac- 
cording to fate; but that every man does well or ill 
according to the freedom of his will or choice" In this 
expression Justin, without doubt, includes in the doing 
well or ill the volition itself; and that volition is accord- 
And whit- ant w * tn tne freedom of the Will. Even Whit- 
by ' s - by himself says that liberty is a power of act- 

ing from ourselves, or doing what we will ; where the act- 
ing and the doing both include the volition, and the 
phrase we will excludes the control of any power but 
Will. This sort of phraseology is verbally inexact ; but 
there can be no doubt that it was intended when used, 
not merely by Whitby, but by the fathers of the Chris- 
tian Church for the first three centuries, to express the 
exclusion of necessitation from the Will in her volitional 
action. But what will, in the minds of many, cover their 
errors with excuse, is the fact that both the elder and the 
similar . ne- younger Edwards, as well as jubilant Dr. 
fnexactness. Pond, were guilty of the oversight of calling a 
volition a voluntary act ; whereas it is the corporeal act 
consequent upon the volition which is voluntary, and not 
the volition itself. 

We find a vicious circle in Dr. Samuel Clarke's formula, 



ANTERIOR STANDARD OF ACCORDANCE. 79 

that the last dictate of the understanding decides the Will. 
Undoubtedly the Will decides immediately after the last 
mental act previous to its volition. The fact that the Will 
decides renders the previous mental state or act last. But 
so far from being true that the last previous mental state 
decides the volition, the truth is that it is Last dictate 

,.. , , of the under- 

thrOUgh the volition that the agent decides standing 

which is the last. That dictate of the understanding be- 
comes the last by act of the Will. The Will decides not 
only the which, but the when; and by deciding the when, 
it renders the immediately previous the last. It is hot 
then that the last dictate of the understanding decides 
the Will ; it is the Will that causes the dictate to be 
last. 

The phrases used to indicate a previous mental making 
up which necessitates the volition elucidate nothing. 
That antecedent making up of the mind is itself, in its 
terminal point, volitional ; being simply a predetermina- 
tion or resolution that at the proper moment a Making up of 
given volition shall be put forth. That is, it is mind * 
a previous volition that I will subsequently put forth an- 
other volition. What is commonly meant by this making 
up of the mind, is the comparative survey through the in- 
tellectual and moral faculties and feelings of the alterna- 
tives and a decision by the Will, settling the question 
by the formation of a purpose or standard determ- 
ination, the nature of which is discussed in the proper 
place.* 

To say that we will as we choose is to make one voli- 
tion accord with a previous volition. To say volition as 
with Professor Lawrence that we will as we "wish" 
"wish,"f inasmuch as that wish is a fixed object secured 
by anterior necessitation, is to fasten the Will again to 
an iron post. We often will as we know we ought, not 
as we wish. 

It is said that the judgment, that a given volition, is, on 
* See p. 154. t Bibliotheca Sacra. 



80 THE ISSUE STATED. 

volition as ^ e whole, best, is what the Will necessarily 
mfnS^an- chooses. But, alas! every feeling claims that 
tecedents. j tg alternative is on the whole the best. Desire, 
if relyingly listened to, affirms that its object is best of all, 
and best on the whole. Conscience, the moral feeling, 
affirms that the right course is on the whole best. Expe- 
diency affirms that the most profitable course is on the 
whole best. Esthetic affirms that its beautiful object is 
best on the whole. A previous choice or a wish affirms 
itself best on the whole. Reason, judgment, affirms that 
a rational course is on the whole best. These are all 
parties, and none final judges. Among them all the man 
makes his choice, and that choice is the true decision of 
the contest, the first and last strike of the balance. 

Professor Haven, after having subjected all our voli- 
tions to causation by anterior choice, and all choice to 
Power over causation by anterior circumstances, considers 
volitions, t ke q Ues tion, How then can we exercise a respons- 
ible power over our future volitions ? To this he makes 
this ludicrous reply : that it can be done "by shaping your 
character, which is under your control." Shape your 
previous character, that is, to higher good, and your fu- 
ture volitions may be directed to higher good. But on 
his doctrine of my having in the past exercised the solely 
possible volitions, any different shaping of my character 
has been out of power. I can neither in the past nor the 
future rise to any higher level of volitions than a fossil 
reptile imbedded in a rock could rise to a higher stratum. 
Our conclusion is that neither any antecedent intrinsic 
strength of motive or class of motives, nor an antecedent 
standard of accordance, can be assigned as furnishing a 
limitative law of the action of Will to sole result. But 
if the choice or sequence of volition is regulated by no 
is wm law- * aw > ** * s replied, it must be lawless and out of 
less? nature, a mere thing of chance. And this will 

be said not only by those who claim the Will to be con- 
trolled in its sequences by necessary causation, but by 



SCHEMATISM OF CONSCIOUS FREE WILL. 81 

those who affirm invariable sequences and are ready to 
deny that such invariability has the quality of law. 

If we reply, Law in all cases must be held to determ- 
ine the particular sequent of the antecedent in all possi- 
ble sequences, if it be such an expression of the order of 
sequence as that the consequent in the sequence is ever 
and always individually fixed, then it must be admitted 
that counter alternative choice must be a choice outside 
of Law. But if Law may be defined an expression or 
description of the true nature of all sequences, then an 
alternative choice is ever within Law. When before the 
Agent there are the alternatives B, C, or D, the agent is 
circumscribed by Law to these alternatives, but not by 
Law to a sole one. That is the full extent of the Law in . 
the case. The non-resultance of rejected possible voli- 
tions is not a case of Lawlessness, for Lawlessness is the 
absence or default of Law where there should be Law, 
and is contrary to the nature of things ; but such non- 
resultance is a case of limitation of the actual extension 
of Law existing in the true and essential nature of things. 



CHAPTEK VIII. 

SCHEMATISM OF CONSCIOUS FREE WILL. 

Peesonality, Personal Identity, or Self, is a simple 
substratum, directly known or intuited by the conscious- 
ness, which no analysis can explain. Nor can 

, . , , i/» Personality. 

we explain how to the sell, as to a center or 
nucleus, the faculties inhere. All the facts that present 
themselves to our experiential observation may, how- 
ever, be stated in proper sequence. 

1. By consciousness we note the operations of our 
own mind, and learn to classify them into intellections, 

6 



82 THE ISSUE STATED. 

Seven con- sensibilities, and volitions. 2. We are, from 

stituents of _. . . _. _ , . A , . J 

freewm. direct cognition, compelled to admit the exist- 
ence of a central self or soul, which consciousness calls I. 
3. We are with equal resistlessness compelled to admit 
that for each specific class of our classified mental 
operations there is a power or ground upon which 
they are based, which we call a Faculty. 4. Con- 
sciousness finds in her I a sense of appropriation by 
which the self claims all the operations and faculties 
to be its own. Of the operations, the conscious self 
says, I feel, I think, I will ; and the same conscious 
self says, My sensibility, my intellect, my Will. 5. As 
in the self there is found a sense of receptivity by which 
certain operations are recognized as incoming, such as 
the sensations and impressions ; so others are felt to be 
outgoing, as the perceptions, affections, passions, and 
desires. 6. But, besides both these classes, there is 
what we will call a sense of the free activity, by which 
we feel that not only the act goes forth by a capability, 
incoming, ^ ut ^ s PTJT forth from the central self-power. 
and g ?or?h- So that all our mental operations are threefold : 
either incoming, outgoing, or forthputting* 
And in this feeling of forthputting there is the half-latent, 
yet diffusive sub-sense that in such putting forth there is 
exercised the creative, directive power, including the 
equally possible withholding. For of the directing, shap- 
ing, and creating of the volition, the possible withholding 
is in fact a part. So that the full amount of the sense of 
putting forth is, that it is done with the full power of 
otherwise-doing or not-doing. There is a freedom both 
to and from the act. 7. The volition so put forth is 
claimed by the self to be pre-eminently its own ; for its 

* Dr. Day, (p. 161,) in opposition to the claim that action is attributa- 
ble to Will alone, asks, "Is there no activity in the passions?" or in 
"reading?" or "thinking?" There maybe action, we reply, that is , 
forthgoing action ; but there is forthputting action only just so far as 
there is Will or volition, separately, or blended with the other action. 



SCHEMATISM OF CONSCIOUS FKEE WILL. 83 

putting forth as it is or withholding, the self acknowl- 
edges the unique commensurate responsibility. 

THE ISSUE AND ARGUMENT. 

We have thus far, as our Part First, stated the na- 
ture of the freedom of the Will as opposed to Volitional 
Necessity, and as required, in our estimation, by the 
doctrine of Responsibility. The form of the Argument 
upon this Issue is this. Through our Part Second, 
assuming the reality of this Freedom, we show that it is 
not invalidated by the Necessitarian Argument ; and in 
our Part Third that it is established by its own Affirm- 
ative Argument. 



84 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. fPartll, 



PART SECOND. 
THE NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. 



SECTION FIRST -THE CAUSATIONAL ARGUMENT. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE NECESSITARIAN PARALOGISM. 

It has been said that the sum total of the arguments 
for necessity, especially in the treatise of President 
supposed Edwards on the Will, consists in the applica- 
maxim. tion in all its phases of the axiom that " every 
event has its cause." But perhaps a closer analysis will 
show that the necessitarian argument is founded not 
upon this axiom, but upon the assumption of another 
proposition which is neither equivalent to this axiom, nor 
in itself axiomatic and self-evident, nor justifiably as- 
sumed without proof, namely, the proposition that 
" every cause is inalternative or unipotent;" that is, that 
every cause is potent to but one solely possible effect, to 
wit, that effect which always follows, and no 
other. It is implied that, in volitions or 
physics, for every infinitesimal point of effect there 
must be the correlative sole infinitesimal point of cause, 
and vice versa. This is identical with the ordinary 
physical maxim that " like causes produce like effects." 
This maxim is the precise contradictory of the proposi- 
tion that "some causes (namely, volitional causes) are 
alternative or pluripotent /" that is, " capable of putting 
forth either of several effects." Now the assumption of 



Sect. 1.] THE NECESSITARIAN PARALOGISM. 85 

the above necessitarian proposition is the Itswhole s ale 
assumption of. the whole point in question. If as8um ption. 
it be granted, the whole discussion is foreclosed before 
it starts. 

That the maxim that "every cause is unipotent" is 
not self-evident; that it is not, like the maxim that 
" every event has a cause," granted by every honest and 
intelligent mind as soon as its terms are fairly under- 
stood and fully weighed, may appear from the following 
consideration. Let us suppose the existence of individ- 
uals, two or more in number, so precisely alike Experimental 
in all the qualities of character, as that, in a case * 
given set of circumstances, they are each a reduplication 
or repetition of precisely a similar volitional experiment. 
If there be within them the power of alternative choice, 
there is no proof, from the nature of the case, (though 
there may be assumption,) that each will put forth pre- 
cisely the same volition. And this not because of any 
chance, but from the most opposite principle — the mys- 
terious responsible self. It is from the fact that, 
however like, each is a distinct responsible Ego ; and 
that in each responsible self is the equal power of altern- 
ative choice. 

We can recollect but one passage in which Edwards 
hits upon the thought of directly proving, as well as 
assuming, that a volitional cause is unipotent ; and even 
in that, as usual, he assumes the point to be Attemptat 
proved. Omitting clauses irrelevant to the proof - 
present purposes, and directed to a point to be here- 
after discussed, we here quote the passage. " That the 
soul, though an active substance, cannot diversify its 
own acts ... is manifest by this, that if so, then the 
Fame cause, the same causal power, force, or influence, 
without variation in any respect, would produce different 
effects at different times." That is, if the soul can 
diversify its own acts, the same cause, in pos- A paralo> 
session of the same power, can produce diverse glsnv 



86 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

effects ; in other words, if the soul can diversify it can 
diversify ; if free Will is then it is. We avow both 
antecedent and consequent, both being the same. Our 
view (which seems not to be invalidated by the above 
argument) implies that in the soul is a sum of power, by 
different exertions of which it can produce different acts. 
The soul, with its power, is "without any variation 
in any respect" until the initial instant of such exerting. 
The power for either exertion is power for either act ; 
and the soul, in view of a given set of motives, possesses 
a one sum of sufficient power for either. 

" But if it be so," Edwards adds, " that the soul has 
no different causality or diverse causal force in produc- 
Second at- m & these diverse effects, then it is evident 
tempt. .^at the soul has no influence, no hand in the 
diversity of the effect, and the difference of the effect 
cannot be owing to anything in the soul, or which is the 
same thing, the soul does not determine the diversity of 
the effect." That is, if it is not by a diverse causal power 

a second * n tne sou ^ tnat tne diverse effect is produced, 
paralogism, ^ en & j g produced by nothing in the soul. 
Why not ? Why may it not be produced by the same 
causal power in the soul, and yet be produced by 
" something in the soul ?" We should suppose that 
the two things not only could agree, but were identical. 
If there be, as we affirm, in the soul the power of pro- 
ducing either of several effects, then that same singular, 
or unchanged power, can " determine the diversity of 
the effect," can fix which effect shall exist, and either 
effect would be from something in the soul. 

Why, according to Edwards, does the soul require 
diverse causalities, or causative powers, to produce di- 
verse effects ? Plainly because a single causality, or causal 
agent, can produce only a single and sole effect, is unipo- 
tent. How is it shown that a single causality is capable of 
but a single effect. By assumption only of the thing to 
be proved. And this is the bottom, the fundamental 



Sect. l.J THE NECESSITARIAN PARALOGISM. 87 

assumption on which necessitarianism is based. This it 
does not prove, but takes for granted, and uses to prove 
the system. But it is, also, the sum total of the system 
itself; so that the system is assumed to prove itself. 
The premise and the proposition are identical — an elab- 
orate paralogism. 

It is no doubt undeniable that if all cause be unipo- 
tent, then any supposed diverse effect is supernumerary, 
and so causeless. Causation then runs in single direct 
lineages; and every event lying out of the inevitable 
direct line is parentless, and cut off from possibility. If 
every cause has its one sole possible effect, any other 
supposable effect is one too many ; it is severed from any 
cause, and drifts loose in the world. Now Edwards first 
assumes unipotence to prove diverse effect The compre- 
causeless, and then proves unipotence by the raiogism. 
causelessness of diverse effect. 

We also make our counter assumption. In our very 
definition of freedom of Will we assume in the volitional 
sphere the inapplicability of the maxim that " like causes 
ever and always produce like effects." We assume that 
either one of several effects is legitimate from the same 
cause. And while we admit that in non-volitional caus- 
ation the law that " every event must have a cause," 
means that every event must have its own peculiar cause, 
adequate for itself alone, in volitional causation an event 
may have a cause adequate either for it or for other 
event ; and whichever event exists, the demands of the 
laws of causation are completely satisfied. If these 
assumptions, made in the First Part of our treatise, can 
hold good against the objections met in the Second, 
they will scarce need the affirmative argument of our 
Third to establish their validity forever. 



88 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part 11, 



CHAPTEE II. 

CAUSE OF PARTICULAR VOLITION. 

Against alternative causation the main amount of 
necessitarian argument may be reduced to the four fol- 
lowing questions : 

I. What causes the Will to act ? 

II. What causes it to put forth the particular volition ; 
or the particular volition rather than another ? 

III. Why does the volition (or rather volition), for 
which there was adequate cause not take existence ? 

IV. What cause for this contingent diversity of hap- 
penings, by which a result for which there is adequate 
cause does and does not take existence ? 

These questions we shall consider in their order. 

I. To the preliminary question, What causes the Will 
to act ? it is competent to reply that every agent in his 
cause that proper conditions is under a general necessity 

win acts. f ac ti on? even w hile free in the particular 
choice. Thus an agent with three alternatives before 
him must choose one of the three or refuse to choose 
either. But this refusal is but a fourth alternative, 
and the refusing act or nolition is as true a volition as 
* either of the three. So that the necessity is that he 
is compelled to take some one of the four; the free- 
dom lies in his equal power of selecting either one of 
the four. 

II. But what causes the Will to put forth the partic- 
causeofpar- ttlar volition and 7io other? This is the 

ticular voli- . . „* . . 

tion. crucial question which constitutes, it is sup- 

posed, the vital force of the entire necessitarian argument, 
which it claims as the unanswerable point, and by the 
complete answer of which it must confess itself con- 
quered. "The question," says Edwards, "is not so 
much, How a spirit endowed with activity comes to act, 



Sect. 1.] CAUSE OF PARTICULAR VOLITION. 89 

as, Why it exerts such an act and not another, The crudal 
or why it acts with such a particular determina- ^dkfg 11 a t°o 
tion. If activity of nature be the cause why a Edwards - 
spirit (the soul of man, for instance) acts and does not lie 
still, yet that alone*is not the cause why its action is thus 
and thus limited, directed, and determined. Active na- 
ture is a general thing ; it is an ability or tendency of 
nature to action, generally taken, which may be a cause 
why the soul acts as occasion or reason is given ; but 
this alone cannot be a sufficient cause why the soul exerts 
such a particular act, at such a time, rather than 
others."*— P. 77. 

So also Mr. Day in his work on the Will : •" Some 
writers speak of the power of willing, as being the 
sole and sufficient cause why the mind wills one 
way rather than another. But it is evi- Accordingto 
dent that the mere power of willing is Day * 
not, of itself alone, even the reason why a man wills at 
all, unless the term power be used in the broad and un- 
usual sense which includes every antecedent on which his 
willing depends. Is a man's power to walk the only 
reason why he actually walks? Does a man always 
speak when he has the power to speak ?" — P. 47. 

" But whatever may be assigned as the reason why he 
wills at all, the main inquiry will still return upon us : 
Why does the mind will one way rather than another ? 
why does it choose one object rather than its opposite ?" 
—P. 48. 

* We shall here note, as in many other instances, how preposter- 
ous the pretense that Edwards does not teach necessity, but only cer- 
tainty. Edwards here argues that the motive sustains to the particular 
volition the absolute relation of cause and effect. It is necessary in 
order to the existence of the particular volition ; and when it exists it 
not only negatively renders other volition causeless and impossible, tut it 
positively secures, causes, and necessitates the particular volition. If there 
be any certainty distinct from necessity, this is not that certainty but 
necessity. There can be no stronger proof that Edwards excludes not 
merely the use but the existence of contrary power. His necessity is 
certainty just because his certainty is necessity. 



90 NECESSITARIAN" ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

"An equal power to will anyway indifferently, is not 
surely the only ground of willing one way rather than 
another."— P. 48. 

To this we reply, 1. Though a general activity or 
Replies; ai- power is a general thing, and accounts only for 
cause solves action generally, yet a particular power or 
effect. cause is a particular thing and accounts, for a 

particular action ; and moreover an alternative power or 
cause is an alternative thing, and accounts for the coming 
into existence of either one of several effects. And that 
is the thing to be accounted for, and so at once and for 
all the crucial question is answered.* 

"A general activity" or cause is an imperfect cause 
inadequate to any specific effect without the addition 
of some further causal or conditional element to render 
it particular and possibly resultant. When it is thus 
made specific and possibly causative of particular effect, 
whether the tne q ues ti° n may still remain to be settled not 
?ause C sotve3 a Priori, but experientially whether the cause 
eitheresect. j^ um p tential or adequate to an effect solely 
possible, or whether it may account for either one of 
several results. And in the latter case the existence of 
the single result and the non-existence of the others are 
as truly accounted for as in the former. For a cause 
capable of either effect is in nature as in our definition, 
the cause of whichever effect results. If consciousness 
cognize a class of causes of which each one is a sufficient 
cause for either of several effects exclusive of opposite 
effect, then whichever effect results has a sufficient cause 
for its existence excluding all effects contradictory to itself. 

* "The particular determination is accounted for in the very quality 
or attribute of the cause. In the case of a physical cause, the particular 
determination is accounted for in the quality of the cause, which quality 
is to be necessarily correlated to the object. In the case of Will the 
particular determination is accounted for in the quality of the cause, which 
quality is to have the power to make the particular determination with- 
out being necessarily correlated to the object." 

This thought was, we believe, first introduced into the discussion by 
Dr. Tappan in his Eeview of Edwards. 



Sect. 1.] CAUSE OF PARTICULAB VOLITION. 91 

If there be a cause as fully sufficient for either of several 
effects as a unipotent cause is of its own sole effect, then 
whichever effect results has as sufficient, as full, as com- 
plete and adequate a cause as any physical or necessary 
effect whatsoever. 

2. Every cause, like every other thing, is to be tested 
by the conditions of its own existence and nature. 
A* unipotent cause is to be held to the conditions of 
its own nature. An alternative cause also must be 
held only to the conditions of its own na- Alterna tive 
ture; it cannot be held impossible because causes - 
it does not comply with the conditions of unipotent 
cause. If a cause be by the condition of its own 
nature sufficient for either one of several effects, then 
either one of those several effects may be brought into 
existence in accordance with the conditions of the na- 
ture of that cause without requiring it to fulfill the condi- 
tions of another kind of cause. Now the necessitarian re- 
pudiates the alternative cause because that fulfills not the 
conditions of unipotent cause. He infers that because a 
unipotent cause cannot produce other effect than Not tested by 
one without the introduction of a new antece- conditions. 
dent, therefore an alternative cause cannot ; and therefore 
an alternative cause cannot exist. 

But experience may show a class of causes from 
which either one of several effects may result, with- 
out the introduction of any new antecedent. Require no 

T -, ,, n. , n t new causal 

In such a case, therefore, to demand a new an- element, 
tecedent, that is, to ask what causes the particular voli- 
tion, or what prevents the counter, is illegitimate. It is 
to require conditions not belonging to the nature of the 
subject. 

And this reasoning is good for whichever of the several 
alternatives occurs ; for C as for B or A. If golve either 
C result, then the assignment of an alternative result 
cause of which C is a possible alternative effect, is just as 
true an accounting for C as if it were the result for which 



92 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

we can assign a general cause rendered unipotent by the 
addition of the requisite causal condition. The same as- 
signment is as good for B or A as alternative result of 
the same alternative cause. 

3. Let us divide all causes into partial and complete, 
Adequate adequate or sufficient. A partial cause is that 

cause . and in n 

partial. antecedent, or number of antecedents, necessary 
to a given effect, but insufficient to the effect without some 
further element added. It needs something to cause it to 
produce the effect. Thus powder is but a partial cause of 
flame, but not an adequate or complete. And it is properly 
asked what causes the powder to produce the flame, and 
the proper answer is the spark. The rail car is a partial 
cause of locomotion ; and when it is asked what causes 
it to move, the answer is the steam power. A complete, 
sufficient, or adequate cause comprehends all the constit- 
uents requisite to the effect. The adequate cause exist- 
ing, the effect is possible to exist. Thus the powder and 
the spark combined are a complete cause of the flame ; 
the car and the steam power produce motion. It is ab- 
surd to ask or assign any additional cause for the exist- 
Adequate ence of the effect of a complete and adequate 

needs no fur- -^ - T , 7 

tner cause, cause. Jb or the complete cause produces its 
effect UNCAUSEDLY. The complete cause existing, the 
existence of the effect is finally accounted for. Requir- 
ing additional cause would be asking what causes cause 
to cause ? What causes causation ? The cause exists, 
and the effect arises ; and that is the ultimate. 

Now of its own effect, Will, in its proper conditions, is 
win is ade- not a P ar tial, but a full and adequate cause. 
quate cause. p ut j 0nY finger upon any effect (volition) and 
ask, What caused this result exclusively of the others? 
and the reply is, The Will, or the agent in willing. Ask 
then what caused the Will in its conditions to cause the 
volition, and the reply is, Nothing. Nay, you are a bad 
philosopher in asking. For, for its own effect Will or 
the willing agent is a complete cause; as complete a cause 



Sect. 1.] CAUSE OF PARTICULAR VOLITION. 93 

as any cause whatever ; and every complete cause pro- 
duces its effect ukcausedly. The volition, like every 
other effect, is completely accounted for when a com- 
plete cause is assigned. To ask what causes the com- 
plete cause to produce the effect, is to ask the cause of 
causation. 

When, therefore, of the full, complete, and sufficient 
Cause, Will, it is asked, in its proper conditions, What 
causes it to produce the particular effect? we reply, 
Nothing whatever. For a complete cause needs nothing 
to cause it to produce its normal effect. It is as illegiti- 
mate as for me to ask what confines necessary cause to 
one sole effect ? What hems ifr to a single outlet ? What 
excludes an infinity of different effects ? For the sole 
unipotent effect, a unipotent cause is necessary ; for either 
alternative effect the alternative cause is sufficient. 

Or if the question be, Why did the Will in equipoise 
choose thus rather than otherwise? the reply Forthisratb . 
is, Because the Will was a complete and ade- erthanthafc - 
quate cause for that choice rather than another; and 
when an adequate cause is assigned the Why is answered. 
In inalternative causation the Why is indeed to be an- 
swered by furnishing the additional element which ren- 
ders the cause adequate. In alternative causation there 
is no need of furnishing additional causality, for by its 
nature alternative cause furnishes adequacy for either; 
and for either over, or rather than, the other. In either 
alternative or inalternative causation, when the sufficient 
and adequate cause is assigned, there is an end of all 
questions, the whys ? wherefores f and what causes ? 

It is in fact not true that "a general power" is truly 
the power — that is, the power adequate to the Each effect 

i» * TjL . , n i i conditions its 

enect. It is only part of such a power, and own cause. 
must wait until the other part is supplied before it is the 
power relatively to the effect. When, in the proper 
sense, the power exists, the effect is accounted for. If a 
unipotent power, the one effect is accounted for ; if an 



94 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II. 

alternative power, either actual result is accounted for. 
If the unipotent cause exists, the solely possible effect 
must result. If the alternative cause exists, either 
alternative effect may result, and one of the several 
must. And these two exhaust all causality and all 
eventuality. 

III. But be it admitted that a full and perfect cause 
why not the accounts for the particular volition transpiring ; 
counter? was there not also a full and perfect cause 
for the counter volition f If so, what icas the cause of 
its not coming to pass f If the alternative Will is capa- 
ble of either of several effects, what causes that some 
other than the actual effect does not take place ? 

If this has not been satisfactorily answered in the pre- 
ceding remarks, consider the following points : 

1. A particular m>lition implies and includes not only 
Excluded by t ne actuality of itself, but the negation of the 
particularity. coun t er volition. Particularity coming into 
existence is itself exclusive of all counter. Hence, if the 
actual particular volition be accounted for, the non-exist- 
ence of the counter is accounted for, and the whole is 
accounted for. 

2. The same reply is ready to be given for the rejec- 
tion of the counter as for the actual particular volition. 
The rejection The said rejection is then to be viewed as the 

the volition, volitional act to be accounted for / and the 
same reason is to be given. The Will in its proper con- 
ditions is a full and perfect cause for the volitional act in 
question, namely, the rejection of the counter. 

3. Our very definition of a free Will is, a power of 
included in choosing in a given direction, with a full 

the defini- . . 

tion. power of choosing otherwise. .Now the rejec- 

tion of a counter for which there is full power, in giving 
forth the actual, is included in the very idea of a free 
Will. To deny the possibility of this is to assume the 
point in question. 

"I hold that to be a sufficient cause," says Hobbes, 



Sect. 1.] CAUSE OF PARTICULAR VOLITION. 95 

"to which nothing is wanting to the producing H °w^' t s ar- 
of the effect. The same is a necessary cause. sufficient^ 
For if it be possible that a sufficient cause necessar y- 
shall not bring forth the effect, then there wanteth some- 
what w T hich was needful to the producing of it, and so 
the cause was not sufficient; but if it be impossible that 
a sufficient cause should not produce the effect, then is a 
sufficient cause a necessary cause. Hence it is manifest 
that whatsoever is produced is produced necessarily; for 
whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient cause to 
produce it, or else it had not been, and therefore also 
voluntary actions are necessitated." 

That, we are here told, " is a sufficient cause to which 
nothing is wanting to the producing the ef- Re Ues _ ad . 
feet." That is, in other w T ords, an adequate JSfSlS** 
volitional cause is one to which no power is rilyresultar>t » 
wanting for the forthputting of effect. It is a true prop 
osition. But it does not necessarily follow that this 
adequate cause will be a resultant cause, as we have 
noted in the Second of our Postulates, (p. 55.) " The 
same is a necessary cause." Not granted; but let us 
hear his reason why " necessary." " For if it be possi- 
ble that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect, 
then" — what follows? It follows, we think, and is 
true, that there may be a sufficient or adequate cause 
which does not put forth a the effect ;" that is, the given 
sole inalternative effect. It follows, as we have stated in 
our Postulates, that there may be a volitional adequate 
cause for an effect which is not resultant in that effect, 
but in some other effect for which it was equally adequate. 

But Hobbes's inference is, "then there wanteth some- 
what which was needful to the producing of it, and so 
the cause was not sufficient." It is not admitted from 
the fact "that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the 
effect" that "then somewhat" of power, sufficiency, 
or cause was wanting, "so that the cause was not 
sufficient." 



96 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

It merely follows (according to our Canon III) that 
" Non-occurring volitions do not prove non-existence of 
adequate cause. Not for every no-volition is there a no 
adequate cause." For an alternative cause may non- 
want of re- produce an effect for which it is sufficient, by 
™t wan°t v of producing the other effect for which it is equally 
power. sufficient. What is "wanting" for the non- 
produced effect is not power, but (Postulate IV) exer- 
tion of power. 

A sufficient cause, Mr. Hobbes argues, uniformly pro- 
statement of duces 5 f° r ^ & evGr produce not, it is not a 
causations, sufficient cause, and being uniform it is neces- 
sary. Substitute our other term, namely, adequate 
cause ; and let us say, A free, conscious, adequate cause 
does not uniformly produce the required possible result ; 
for there may not be a particular result, and yet the 
cause be consciously adequate : hence an adequate cause 
is not always a necessary, but often a non-necessary, 
alternative free cause. Hobbes will then have stated 
the necessary causation of physics ; we shall have stated 
the free causation of Will. 

The argument of Hobbes is essentially adopted by the 
Hobbes's ■*. Princeton Essayist, p. 254 : " If it (the con- 
other words, trary choice) is not made, then those condi- 
tions were wanting in it [the Will] as a cause which were 
indispensable to the effect, and in the absence of which 
it was not adequate to the effect." This assumes, with 
Hobbes, that there are no "sufficient" or adequate yet 
non-resultant causes ; and that the absence of volitional 
result is demonstrative proof of the absence of volitional 
power. 

Edwards uses an argument somewhat similar, drawn 
from the necessary dependence of the effect 

Edwards's T *,. -, , -, i 

SoSTdeJ u P on tne cause - " Iv sa y s ne > tne event be 
^effect n °t connected with the cause it is not depend- 
on cause. ent on t j ie canse . j ts existence is, as it were, 

loose from its influence, and may attend it or not, it being 



Sect. 1.] CAUSE OF PARTICULAR VOLITIOX. 97 

a mere contingence * whether it follows or attends the 
influence of the cause or not, and that is the same thing 
as not to be dependent on it. . . . So far as an event is 
dependent on the cause and connected with it, so much 
causality there is in the cause and no more" 

That all effects necessarily depend upon their causes, 
and if they exist are necessarily connected with their 
causes, no one denies. 1. Every physical 
cause and effect are so necessarily connected 
that either existing the other exists. 2. It is admitted 
that in the order of nature, so soon as a thing begins 
to exist, so far as it does exist, it necessarily exists, 
since it is impossible for the thing done to become 
not done. This necessity is consequent and subse- 
quent in the order of nature to the existence. 3. It 
is granted that every volitional effect which comes into 
existence is "connected with its cause" is "depend- 
ent on its cause," derives its existence from its cause, 
and would not exist as it does without the cause. 4. But 
it is not. admitted conversely, that the volitional cause 
depends on the effect, so but that it can exist cause does 
in all its fullness and completeness, without on effect. 
producing that effect; or that it is necessitated to the 
effect. The proof is demanded that an agent cannot ex- 
ist with full power to an act, without performing that act. 
The proof is demanded, but has never been furnished, that 
an agent may not be a sufficient or adequate cause with- 
out being a resultant cause. 

If it be said that a cause without an effect is no cause 
at all, it is again merely a verbal argument. We may 

* Let the reader note here that Edwards places volitional causation 
on precisely the same ground as mechanical. There is no "contrary 
power," no mere u certainty, " no u always can but never will cause 
otherwise." Alteriety is non-dependence of effect upon cause ; it is 
" a mere contingence," that is, "no cause." The dependence is just 
commensurate with the causality. Nothing can with more mathemat- 
ical accuracy exclude "contrary power." 

7 



98 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

define cause to be that in which power to the effect exists, 
Effectless an( ^ tne argument is voided. We may affirm 
cause. t k at a c ause potential to an effect which it does 
not produce is still to be called thereto a cause. 

IV. But, finally, if adequate causes are not uniformly 
and necessarily resultant, if adequate cause sometimes 
produces and sometimes produces not, or what is the same 
thing, can be conceived as producing or not producing an 
alternative effect, necessitarianism holds all to be at loose 
ends, and asks, What cause for this contingent diversity of 
happenings, by which result for which there is adequate 
cause does and does not take place ? Thus Edwards says, 
what cause " ^ there be any event which was not necessarily 
of diversity? connec ted with the influence of the cause under 
such circumstances, then it was contingent whether it 
would attend or follow the influence of the cause or no ; 
it might have followed and it might not when the cause 
was the same, its influence the same, and under the same 
circumstances. And if so, why did it follow rather than 
not follow ? There is no cause or reason of this. . . . 
What can be the cause or reason of this strange phenom- 
enon, even this diversity, that in one instance the effect 
should follow, in another not ? It is evident by the sup- 
position* that this is wholly without any cause or ground. 
Here is something in the present mariner of the existence 
of things and state of the world that is absolutely with- 
out a cause." — P. 112. 

Doubtless this is a melancholy " manner of the exist- 
ence of things and state of the world ;" and perhaps our 
reply will in no degree relieve it. For, 1. It seems a 
little hard to be required to furnish a cause — that is, a 
general and uniform cause — for a diversity, we might say 
an infinite diversity, of particulars. Diversities countless 
in number may have a countless number of particular 
causes, tedious as well as difficult to enumerate. But not 
to insist on this, 2. To the argument how can the divers- 
ity found in alternativity be accounted for we return a 



Sect. 1.] CAUSE OF PARTICULAR VOLITION. 99 

retort. How can we account for the uniformity found in 
unipotency? How can cause be necessitated what cause 
to one effect ? What forbids alternative effects, i°ty? unL 
and limits and binds and imprisons cause down to one 
result? Here is a thing to be accounted for "in the 
present manner of the existence of things and the state 
of the world" which no man has ever yet accounted 
for; even this uniformity — this unipotency — by which 
every particular causality, physical and spiritual, finite 
and infinite, is fastened to one solely possible effect. 

And when we have found the fastener, what fastens 
the fastener ? The chain of fate fastens all things, but 
what fastens the chain of fate ? If over the entire whole 
of things, through immensity and through eternity, the 
iron casement of necessity is fast bound, to tighten every 
thing in its place, what holds the particles of the casement 
in cohesion, and what tightens the tightener ? What ne- 
cessitates necessity ? The casement needs another iron 
layer, and another in an infinite series of adamantine 
strata * x and is then never secure, for there must be no 
outside layer. For what holds the outside stratum, and 
what holds the whole infinity of adamantine strata in co- 
hesion? What holds the essence of deity together, or 
gives omnipotence its strength, and causation its causality. 

In short, alternativity is as easily accounted for as 
unipotence, diversity as uniformity. It is as easy E q uivalen t 
telling how cause diverges as converges. A difficulty - 
priori both are equally difficult and equaHy easy. One 
can be accounted for as much and as little as the other. 
Both can be accounted for by the same verbal solution. 
The uniformity as well as the diversity must be verbally 
accounted for by saying, Such is the nature of the case — 
there are two classes of causes : in one lies the power, I 
know not how, to terminate in one sole effect ; in the 
other, I know not how, lies the power of terminating in 
either of several effects. And thus the necessitarian is 
answered by being shown that his own doctrine involves 



100 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

all the difficulties he objects against us. And since it is 
agreed that these difficulties are not recognized as such 
by any reason or philosophy, the arguments of necessity, 
based on causation, disappear. 

There remains one causational argument more by which 
President Edwards maintains the necessity of volitions, 
Edwards's ax- an( ^ wn ^ cn "will require but a brief considera- 
SeSty fro of ti° n - Every effect, he argues, is necessary ; be- 
an effect. ^g absolutely produced and modified by its 
cause. Volitions are an effect; and as such are passively 
modified, and therefore absolutely necessary.* 

Now this may be fully granted without at all touching 
the question of the freedom of the agent who produces 
Re 1 -Non- ^ e v °tition. A volition, as a fact brought 
the essit free- ^° existence, has indeed no freedom. It must 
agent * take existence as it is brought into existence. 

It is a produced entity, and not a living principle. It 
did not make itself, and could not prevent its own exist- 
ence, or make itself otherwise. But the liberty resides 
in the free-agent, who was able to produce that or other 
volition instead. It does not follow that because the 
volition must come into existence just as the agent brings 
it into existence, that therefore the agent cannot bring it 
any otherwise into existence, or could not have brought 
forth other volition instead. The necessity comes into 
existence after the free causation, which brings both the 
necessity and the volition into being together. A free 
volition is so called, not because, as an abstract caused 
fact, it has intrinsic freedom, but because it is brought 
into existence by a free causal agent. 

So also reasons the younger Edwards, (p. 398 :) "Un- 
Younger Ed- ^ ess v °liti° ns take place absolutely without a 
c^tVS^ii cause they are effects ; and every effect necessari- 
effect. Yj follows its cause." If the phrase, " necessarily 

* Let the reader note that this argument assumes pure necessity ; not 
any mere certainty in any sense distinct from inalternative causational 
necessity. 



Sect. 1.] CAUSE OF PAKTTCULAR VOLITION. 101 

follows its cause," means that the effect truly takes the 
shape and quality derived from its causation, it is true ; 
but this proves not that other effect instead may not have 
been produced by an alternative causal power, adequate 
to the other effect instead. He further reasons, _ 

' Proves t not 

" if the mind cause its own volitions it necessi- p?odu S cm R in 
tates them into existence ;" but that proves not tbeeffect - 
that the mind is necessitated to necessitate them into 
that particular form or specimen of existence. 

The same error of locating the freedom in the act as it 
receives existence from its cause, instead of in the free 
agent, is committed in the Princeton Essayist, who makes 
it the foundation of a fallacious argument. " If Freedom not 
such an action as is possessed of such qualities, duced e ac p t™* 
and no other, is free, it follows that if a given choice be 
free it must be such an action and no other." That is, a free 
act must be just such an act as it is and no other, and is 
therefore necessary. But we reply, that makes no differ- 
ence with regard to the freedom of the agent, But in. the 
whose freedom consists in the power for this or agent. n 
for either of several other acts. Whichever act he pro- 
duces must indeed be just such an act as it is and no other 
— it must be itself and nothing else ; it must be free and 
not necessitated ; but that does not prove that the agent 
could not produce other act instead. 

If the reply be that still the agent must be possessed of 
certain qualities and no other, the reply is true, but nu- 
gatory. The agent must, in order to be a free agent, 
possess the quality of freedom. In other words, it is 
logically necessary in order to his being a free agent that 
he be a free agent. Whatever is, is. 

The writer adds : " In order to freedom in the manner 
and quality of an action there must be a necessity as to 
its event ; a necessity that it be as it is and not other- 
wise." If this mean that there is necessity in the agent 
to produce but that sole event it is denied. If it mean 
that the event must take existence as the agent causes it 



102 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

a dead fact to re ^eive existence, it is true but nugatory. A 
is not free. <j ea( i f ac £ cannot possess power to unmake, 
transform, or substitute itself; nor does any theory we 
have maintained attribute to it such power. 

In the same paragraph this writer affirms, as a " funda- 
mental position of Calvinism," that "in respect to the 
Freedom of choices of moral agents there is freedom as to 

manner but - , - r» t 

not event, the manner, and necessity or fixedness as to 
the event" But, we ask, is there any less fixedness or 
necessity according to necessitarianism in the " manner " 
than in "the event?" Does not necessitarianism as 
truly limit the mode as the fact? Would not an act 
performed in a different manner be a different act? If 
there be a greater freedom in the choice of the manner 
than the act, would that not require two choices for 
every act, one for the manner and one for the act ? Or 
what kind of a freedom is that which consists in perform- 
ing a fixed act in a manner as fixed as the event ? 

If there be no self-determining power in the manner 
of the action, no power of alteriety of manner of action, 
no power of contrary choice, then there can be no more 
fixedness or necessity in the event than in the manner, 
and no more freedom in the manner than in the event. 
And if the fixedness and necessity of the event are the 
antithesis and exclusive of freedom in the event, then 
that same fixedness and necessity are the exclusive of free- 
dom in the manner. Both in the event and in the man- 
ner, then, there must be a necessity excluding freedom. 

Leibnitz had a variation of the causal maxim upon 
Leibnitz's which he much prided himself, namely, that 
reason. "nothing takes place without a sufficient rea- 
son" Herein he misuses the last word of the maxim, 
"reason," by transferring it from the subjective to the 
objective. A reason is not the external or physical 
antecedent of the result. It is always something within 
the i mind. When not a motive for a volition it is a 
premise for a conclusion, or an internal accounting for, 



Sect.l.] CAUSE OF PARTICULAR VOLITION. 103 

perhaps an external fact, by the mental assignment of 
its external cause. Yonder water-wheel, whirled by a 
stream, is not whirled by a reason; it is not so reason- 
able a being as to be moved by any reason whatever. 
The water is not a stream of reason ; it brings not a 
reason to bear upon the wheel. But when I Inaccurate 
am asked why the wheel revolves, I assign termino10 ^- 
the fact, that the cause, water, exists, to account for the 
fact that the revolution exists. That is one fact, the 
existence of the wheel, taken into the mind as premise 
or reason, enables me to see that another fact, the revo- 
lution, is a commensurate result. The perception of the 
fact is a reason for the affirmation of the conclusion. 

But in volitional language there is a reason for action, 
which is not a cause. The cause is the agent or Will ; 
the reason is that on account of which the agent acts or 
wills. To class this reason under the term cause is the 
gross sophism of Edwards ; to class it under the same 
term as cause is made to bear, is the more delicate but 
just as deceptive sophism of Leibnitz. 

As to the maxim, Nothing takes place without a suffi- 
cient reason, let us ask, What is the sufficient reason for 
a sufficient reason's being necessary ? What is the suf- 
ficient reason for a sufficient reason's accounting Bootle9S 
for every thing ? What is the sufficient reason maxim - 
for a cause's producing effect ? By what sufficient reason 
is all cause limited to one sole effect ? What is the suf- 
ficient reason why the march of cause and effect never 
stands still ? If every cause is limited in physics to one 
sole effect, what sufficient reason is there that a volitional 
cause may not produce either of several possible effects ? 
And if either one of said possible effects results, what is 
the sufficient reason why that cause should not be ade- 
quate cause and sufficient reason for that effect ? 

These questions are properly answered by saying that 
mind must stop at the boundary line of expe- Le ibnitzian 
rience and intuition. It must take laws and p*™ 10 ^ 



104 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

not attempt to throw anticipatory injunctions on the na- 
ture of things, nor try to project its inquiries beyond 
axioms and settled universal processes. Nothing takes 
place without a cause — without a sufficient reason being 
assignable. But suppose our experience and intuition 
affirm a sphere of conditions in which a one sufficient 
reason will account for either of several results ; neither 
result would then eventuate without a sufficient reason ; 
for, for either result actually eventuating, the actual suf- 
ficient reason is the amply accounting reason. Then as 
before, the mind must accept the laws and limitations 
which this experience and intuition impose. Questions 
must stop when our investigations strike against a wall 
of solid reality. 

Leibnitz's reply is : " A man never has a sufficient rea- 
His wank as- son to act > when he has not also a sufficient 
sertion. reason to act in a certain particular manner" 
This is simply an authoritative assertion of the point in 
question ; that is, it is a blank denial that there may be 
in condition a sufficient reason for either of several results. 
It is merely a statement of counter issue, for which we 
want and forever must want the argument. 



CHAPTER III. 

BOUNDARY LINES OF THE UNKNOWN. 

The conclusiveness of our reasoning in the last chap- 
ter may appear more decisive if we' duly consider what 
are the limitations of human knowledge, what questions 
in philosophy are legitimate, and of what questions no an- 
swer can be required because the answer lies in the do- 
Necessity main of the Unknowable. It will be perhaps 
S a o\m d p(£ ascertained that no unanswerable question can 
be propounded to the side of Free Will which 



Sect. 1.] BOUNDARY LIKES OF THE UNKNOWN. 105 

is not equally a poser for the side of necessity. The 
difficulties on both sides are identical, arising alike from 
our incapability of knowing the interior nature of causa- 
tion. 

Sir William Hamilton affirms that free Will is to be 
believed ; although it cannot be conceived because the 
human mind cannot conceive the beginning of motion. 
For that same reason, we reply, necessity cannot be con- 
Begmning of ceived ; for we can no more conceive the initial 

effectuation . n „ n - _ 

unthinkable, point oi effect springing forth out of a necessary 
cause, than of effect springing up from an alternative 
cause. Effect is ever born in darkness ; and all move- 
ment is mystery. What has ever given to the cause of 
necessity an apparent victory has arisen from the fact 
that it has taken its turn to ask the question How, just 
at the boundary line of that unknowable which conceals 
the answer equally for both sides. It is ju^t as difficult 
to answer How unipotent cause is limited to one sole 
effect, as How alternative cause is capacitated to either 
of several effects. And when from the difficulty of an- 
swering this question Edwards affirms that alternative 
effect is effect without cause, he forgets that unipotent 
effect is equally effect without cause. And when again 
Edwards assumes from the same difficulty that alternative 
volition can be put forth only by a subsidiary volition to 
fix its particularity, he forgets that unipotent causation, 
whether finite or Infinite, requires a similar subsidiary 
causation to limit its unipotence and ascertain its fixed 
effect. 

And this may be the place to notice a profound diffi- 
culty stated by Sir William Hamilton against Cousin's 
theory of volitional freedom, (which is essentially our own,) 
that " divorcing liberty from intelligence, but connecting 
it with personality, he defines it to be a cause which is 
determined to act by its proper energy alone." This 
may be an over-statement of the difficulty in our theory. 
By our doctrine of motive influence, as hereinafter stated, 



106 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

we profess to maintain a freedom which is not " divorced 
from intelligence." But letting that pass, our present 
purpose is to state the proper retort. All power is blind ; 
all knowledge is impotent. How then, even in the con- 
stitution of the Infinite Being, does blind power recog- 
nize the dictates of intelligence and guide itself in abso- 
controi of lute submission to its absolute impotence ? Or 
thought. how does the impotence subdue absolute power, 
which is unable to recognize its dictates, to its own con- 
trol ? Here, then, is a divorce of intelligence and force 
whose inter-action, though they can never be explained, 
must ever be accepted. If it be said that Personality 
forms the medium of transition by which power and in- 
telligence come into contact, we rather reduplicate the 
difficulty. How do power and intelligence come into 
contact in the personality so that intelligence, which is 
impotent there, controls power ; and power, which is blind, 
appreciates and obeys intelligence? And how does 
thought become fixed to substance so as to inhere? 
And how do the faculties fasten upon the self as upon a 
bare and rigid nucleus ? We ask not these questions for 
their own sake. Their only purpose is to show that the 
difficulty is equal for necessity and for freedom. And 
yet if a complete answer be impossible, we may bring 
our conceptions perhaps as near as possible to a satisfac- 
tory state by the following statements : 

1. By the division of faculties, admitted by modern 
Division of necessitarians and by Sir William Hamilton 
faculties. himself, into intellect, sensibilities, and will, 
the Will is as truly divorced from feeling and intellection 
as by our doctrine of freedom. By that division the Will 
can neither think nor feel. It has neither eyes nor heart. 
It is simply a projectile lying between the opposite fac- 
ulties to whose forces it yields with a mechanical exact- 
ness. It can never be explained how this blind insensate 
projectile Will is able to appreciate and know when the 
exact measure is furnished so as to obey it, nor how in- 



Sect. L] FREEDOM INVOLVES NOT ATHEISM. 107 

telligence which is impotent can master and secure obe- 
dience. And then, assuming that this projectile may ap- 
preciate and obey, we can no better conceive it as appre- 
ciating a fixed measure and obeying with a mechanical 
spring, than as appreciating and obeying a variable meas- 
ure with a contingent, living, freely selective elasticity, 
and from its own self-activity. Freedom is therefore no 
more a divorce of Will from intelligence than necessity. 
2. Perhaps it further relieves the difficulty of a true 
conception to remember that this division is is a ciassm- 
truly nothing else than a classification of oper- erations. 
ations of the single agent.* Will therefore is simply a 
fact that an intelligent agent chooses, and that he has 
power so to do. Volitions are therefore intelligent acts, 
put forth not by a blind, but an intelligent cause. Nor 
does our view of freedom make them less intelligent 
than does necessity. We suppose the agent to act in 
full view of all that intellect or all that feeling can pre- 
sent, yet with a power lying in his nature of responsibly 
choosing and deciding for either of their presentations. 
Freedom, therefore, is again no more a divorce of Will 
from intelligence than necessity. 



CHAPTEE IY. 

FREEDOM INVOLVES NOT ATHEISM. 

In an eloquent chapter on the argument for Theism, 
Edwards maintains that inasmuch as alterna- Taunting as- 
tivity of choice involves a maintenance of an freedomists 
event without a cause, the logical result is ists. 
Atheism. His followers, even to the present day, are 
accustomed, with an air of taunting classification, to tell 

* See p. 22. 



108 NECESSITARIAN" ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

us that Edwards demonstrated necessity against Ar- 
minians. Pelagians, and Atheists. 

The heroic hardihood that thus classifies freedomists 
with Atheists or infidels illustrates the proverb that 
Fools fear nothing to any man who will consider the 
fact that there is not perhaps a single unequivocal advo- 
cate for alternative Will on record in ancient ages or 
modern who was an Atheist.* And though Edwards 
has laid open the route and made its breadth conspicuous 
to the world, by which transition from freedom to Athe- 
No man ever ^ sm * s ma< i e 5 n °t the first man has ever been 
£t ca Thrtu h gh found to travel the road from either to the 
freedomism. ^ ei ^ g0 ag to become a sincere atheist as a 
result of his freedomism. The admission of the validity 
of the syllogism is not more clear from exception than 
the rejection of this logical transit. Nor do we need 
any better proof than this argument of the utter abstrac- 
tionism of its proposer, or any clearer illustration of the 
entire want of intuitive sympathy which the intellect of 
Edwards, with all its acuteness, possessed with the true 
"universal common sense of mankind." 

Enlarging our previous statement, we may now say 
that it will be very difficult to find exception to the rule 
that all Atheists, Pantheists, Materialists, and professed 
Fatalists are necessitarians. From Leucippus and De- 
aii Atheists mocritus, through Spinoza and Hume, down to 
tarians. " d'Holbach and Comte, the whole mass, one and 
all, will agree with Edwards in maintaining the absolute 

* Epicurus alone is a cited case to the contrary. Yet had Epicurus 
been like one of the Christian fathers, a desirable authority, how easily 
would Edwards have shown the identity of that philosopher's opinion 
with his own! The words of Lucretius expounding Epicurus, u ducit 
quemque voluntas," is a true equivalent of the Edwardean liberty, 
" doing as we please." That the Will is u fabis avolsa" implies merely 
its exemption from the line of purely physical causation. The clinamen, 
or bent of the Will, is expressly assigned by him as in the line of inal- 
ternative causation, for the very causational reason assigned by Edwards : 



De nihilo quoniam fieri posse videmus— 
Nothing can spring from nothing. 



Beet. 1.] FKEEDOM INVOLVES NOT ATHEISM. 109 

universal necessitation of all events, whether volitional or 
non-volitional. The doctrine that one principle of causa- 
tion or fixed invariable sequence rules all things, material 
or mental, and all events of Will or of physics, is central 
with the d'Holbachian Atheism and Edwardean Calvinism. 
And at the present age especially, the same principle 
rules with that school of godless naturalism which 
threatens to overwhelm the thinking world g oin thepres- 
with a base materialistic and lawless antichris- ent age * 
tianity. The very principle that Edwards and his fol- 
lowers endeavor to install in Christian theology, in 
order to rescue us from Atheism, is found by the mass 
of deniers of God, and immortality, and the soul, and 
the asserters of irresponsibility, and of death an eternal 
sleep, to be cognate to and congenial with their own 
unhallowed systems. We assert no theory, no rule with 
exceptions, but a universal fact; a fact which demon- 
strates our results, that the entirety of that class of anti- 
christian thinkers take the necessitarian side. They do so 
because logically andnnorally necessity belongs in their 
system, and freedom of the Will does not. The doc- 
trine that there is no soul and no Will exempt from that 
same invariable sequency which rules the domains of 
physics, that there is no God who does not come under 
the same inflexible inalternative law with matter, levels 
the whole into one system of fatalistic materialism. The 
subjection of human volitions to the same law elimi- 
nates responsibility, dispenses with retribution, divine gov- 
ernment, and human immortality. And it is a memorable 
point in modern intellectual history, that when the Eu- 
ropean mind lay stagnant in the black quagmire of the 
sensual philosophy of Condillac and his brother materi- 
alistic Atheists, the first omens and the first start of the 
reaction in the hands of Maine de Biran, Royer Collard, 
and Victor Cousin, were the conception and development 
of the idea of Will, of active Power, and of Alternative 
Freedom. 



110 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part u , 

As we have before said, it is the moral couciousness that 
Freedomism rouses the question of freedom of Will. It is 
by m morai from the demand of the ethical intuitions, 
ness. requiring a base for the sense of responsibility. 

It is from the high promptings of the soul refusing to 
be laid by dynamical law to the level of dead nature, 
and claiming the dignity of a self-determining person- 
ality. And that same sense of responsibility which 
assumes freedom for its base, looks forth and upward to 
immortality as its ultimate. And the same sense of 
responsibility which demands freedom for the agent 
demands a God as the executor of responsibility. Nor 
Same re- from any other quarter than from this high 
God. ' Personality within which the moral and free 
nature blend, can we find, out of Revelation, any valid 
proof of the moral personality of God ; that is, any finite 
model for the idea of a true and real God at all. 

The affinity of Edwards's system with the naturalism 
4 « ., ,t>* of Lord Karnes early encountered his book on 

Affinity of Ed- J 

wfthNatuS- i ts ^ rst arr i ya l m Scotland ; and Dugald Stuart 
ism. informs us that its effect in that country has 

been deleterious within the range of his observation. 
Its accordance with materialistic forms of Unitarianism, 
patronized by Belsham and Priestley, as well as with 
the worst forms of Universalism and Parkerism in our 
own country, are beyond dispute. Far be it, however, 
from us to intimate that the Christian surroundings 
with which Edwards and his followers have begirt 
their central fatalism, are at ' all congenial with the 
religious view and feelings of these various classes of 
errorists. 

The charge of denying the axiom that every event 
must have a cause, has been made against the advocates 
of freedom by a late lively writer and disciple of Comte, 
Mr. George H. Lewes, author of " The Biographical His- 
tory of Philosophy." "With respect to one class of 



Sect. 1.] FREEDOM INVOLVES NOT ATHEISM. Ill 

phenomena, more than half of the thinking world is 
firmly convinced that every effect does not imply a 
cause. The class of phenomena referred to are those of 
human volitions. All those who espouse the doctrine 
of Freedom of the Will declare that all our volitions 
are self caused ; that is to say, our volitions are not 
caused by anything external to themselves, not determ- 
ined by any prior fact." — P. 666. 1. Now r , 

J J r False charge 

it is untrue that freedomists are "firmly dimists deny 
convinced that every effect does not imply clSS si to e °f- 
a cause." They maintain the maxim of req- fect ' 
uisiteness of cause for effect as firmly as Mr. Lewes, 
and make careful provision for the strict universality 
of the maxim. They affirm that every unipotent ef- 
fect implies a unipotent cause, and every alternative 
effect implies an alternative cause, and that neither 
of these effects can take place without its appropri- 
ate adequate cause. The averment that both these 
effects equally require a catfle, and that the causes 
assigned are adequate, and all that the nature* of things 
requires, does not imply an effect without a cause. All 
that Mr. Lewes is authorized by fact to say is that fre- 
domists assign for a certain class of events causes which 
he, not they, excludes from the class of causes. The 
issue is not as to the affirmance of the maxim, but as to 
their success in finding for it a legitimate fulfillment. 
To assign a false cause, or even a cause which is not a 
cause, is not to deny the need of any cause. The real issue 
is whether, alternative causes are cause; whether a class 
of alternate causes exist. 2. Unipotent causation and 
alternative causation differ, not in the requirement of an 
antecedent, but in the extent of the possible Area of ef . 
area of the effectuation. For instance, the fectuation - 
unipotent cause being A, the solely possible result B 
constitutes the entire passible area of the effectuation of 
this cause A. But of the alternative cause N", there 
are the possible results, X, Y, Z, disjunctively taken. 



112 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. |PartlI, 

This resultancy of X or Y or Z disjunctively, is the 
extent of the possible area of the effectuation of N*. 
The difference then is in the extent of the area of effectu- 
ation ; but of either area there must be its own antece- 
dent, A or N. Neither alternative of the disjunc- 
tive area, X, T, Z, can any more come into existence 
without a cause than the inalternative area; B. As- 
suming X, Y, Z to be the only alternatives before 
the Will, all other courses are excluded by a deci- 
sive and genuine necessity. The Will is then closed 
in to these sole avenues of action by an adamant 
wall. Any action in other direction would be out of 
the conditions of volition, and would be event with- 
out cause. All the contingency, that is, non-necessity, 
there is, lies in the alternativity of these directions. 
And as the total of the diversity of these directions, as 
has been shown, as much requires a cause for its exist- 
ence as a single inalternative result, that totality is kept 
under the control of catise. The scope of freedom is 
therefore - circumscribed within an outer boundary of 
impassable Law, and the Divine Ruler is thus enabled 
securely to admit a domain of freedom, dependent on 
cause circumscribed by Law, yet within its scope per- 
fectly alternative in action. 

Edwards maintains that not only every event but every 
Effect from modification of an event must have its own pe- 
SSStetootii- culiar cause. And this is fully admitted, and 
is shown to exist in every alternative effect.. 
But what Edwards further claims is that every modifica- 
tion must not only have its own peculiar cause, but also 
a cause which must be inadequate to be the own and pe- 
culiar cause of an alternate effect instead.* But he does 
not show that this last claim is necessary to the require- 
ment of a cause for every event. If either of two possi- 
ble events springs from a given cause, certainly it springs 
from a cause, and so is not an event without a cause, 
* See p. 87. 



Sect.l.] WHAT THE USE? 113 

Nor does such a supposition imply that any No creation 
event could originally spring from non-exist- creator. 
ence without an antecedent, since even alternative effect 
and every alternative area of effectuation requires its own 
existent antecedent. It admits no result without a cause, 
no volition without a Will, no deed without a doer, no 
creation without a Creator. 

In conclusion, let it be again noted that Edwards holds 
that motive is so absolute and inalternative a Edwardshere 
cause of the one particular volition, that the not certain- 

. . tybutneces- 

supposition oi a counter volition is with him sto. 
identical with the supposition of an effect without cause. 
That is, for contrary volition there is no causality or 
power. For the particular sole volition there is the di- 
rect necessitative causation. This is no mere certainty 
distinct from necessity, but necessity itself. It supposes 
not the non-usance, but the non-existence of contrary 
power. 



^•>*» 



CHAPTER V. 

WHAT THE USE? 

In disproof of the existence of " the power of contrary 
choice," it is sometimes asked, " What is the use of a 
power that is never used ?" 

We reply : 1 . The argument lies only against a partic- 
ular mode of expressing the alternatives of will, Alternative 

choice is 

namely, the phrase "power of contrary choice." used. 
Should we say that freedom is a power of choosing either 
of several ways the question loses its force. The man 
has the power of either of several ways that he may 
choose one as well as another, or another as well as the 
one ; and this may be far better than to be limited to one 
solely possible choice. 

2. The objection in fact assumes that there exists be- 

8 



114 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

fore the volition a class or sort of motives or powers 
No class un- wmcn tne Will will not use. It means this or 
used. -^ means nothing to the purpose. Now there 

is no such class previous to the volition. The unused 
possible volitions become a class consequently upon the 
volition. It is the volition that makes the class or sort. 
The assumption that there is a sort or class of volitions 
which is never used is untrue. 

It is true that if Liebnitz, Dr. M'Cosh, and others' 
view be correct, that although there be " power of con- 
trary choice" yet that it will never be used, inasmuch 
as the Will will always choose for the strongest motive, 
then there is an antecedent unused class. There is then 
a specific faculty given never to be used. It may well 
be asked what is the use of it, since by a law of correla- 
tion there is but one real object of choice. 

3. The use or advantage of a power is that it may be 
used, especially if an advantageous use of it be before 
Makes right tne a g en ^- If a wrong course, for instance, be 
possible. before him, it is of vast importance that it be 
not necessitatively to be chosen; but there be also in 
power an alternative of right, that he may choose it 
whether he will or not. If a right course be before 
him, the having a wrong alternative from which he is ex- 
cluded by neither necessity nor law of invariability be- 
comes a trial of virtue, without Avhich moral merit could 
never truly exist. That these opposite alternatives in 
the absence of such exclusion are not used, does not de- 
stroy their use. 

4. To the question, What is the use of a faculty which is 
Makes divine never used ? it is a sufficient reply to say that 

government , „ - n - -. , 

possible. the existence of such a faculty, unprevented by 
law of necessity or invariability, is a necessary element 
of the existence of a free agent, without which there 
could be no just divine government. The use of such a 
power, therefore, is to render a divine government pos- 
sible 1 And surely that is a very great use. 



Sect. 1.] WHAT THE USE? 115 

Somewhat similar to the above necessitarian argument 
drawn from "use," is the following drawn from the 
Baconian philosophy: "Adhering to this Baconian 
method of philosophizing by induction of facts, what 
legitimate evidence is furnished of the existence of such 
a faculty of contrary choice as we are now canvassing ? 
That men choose as they do choose all admit, and of 
course maintain the existence of a faculty adequate there- 
to. But that they choose the contrary of what they choose 
none contend. How then can they contend for the ex- 
istence of a faculty in all respects adequate to do what 
confessedly is never done?" — Princeton Essays, p. 253. 

We reply: 1. The Baconian philosophy abundantly 
maintains a power and faculty for the happening of 
things which never have happened. One signal instance 
lies indeed at the basis of that philosophy, namely, 
the assumption of the permanence of nature. Non . existeil t 
The past has happened, but the future has futm ' e - 
not. Yet of the future the Baconian philosophy holds 
that it will be analogous to the past. The future 
never does and never will happen, but only the pres- 
ent. The actuality of the fact takes it out of the cate- 
gory of the future, just as the actuality of a volition 
takes it out of the category of the contrary ; so that the 
future and the contrary are alike excluded from possible 
experience, and from all possible experiential proof of 
power alike for either. But as the Baconian philosophy 
allows an intuitive recognition of a power or faculty for 
the unexperienced and unexperienceable futurition of a 
fact, so may it for the .altera ativity of a volition. One 
is a permanent non-existent ahead, the other is a perma- 
nent non-existent at our side. There may, therefore, be 
a true Baconian recognition of a possibility or faculty for 
"what confessedly is never done." 

2. Every man assumes intuitively and necessarily, 
before the exertion of every volition the existence of the 
power for its exertion. Otherwise he would not attempt 



116 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 
it. But that contemplated volition does not 

Assumed * 

pjwer for fti- an( j nag no t existed. It is future, and no future 
tion. j g ever ac t ua j # It has never been and never 

can be experienced. This necessary, anterior assump- 
tion of power, then, for a putting forth of volition never 
yet experienced, is, according to the Essayist's reasoning, 
anti-Baconian and false. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THAT ALTERNATIVITY IS CHANCE. 

It is sometimes objected that not to be governed, that 
is, necessitated by some external cause operating upon 
our volitions, but to act solely from the self, is to be 
governed by chance. Says the Princeton Essayist, 
(p. 255:) "How can it (the Will) make any first choice 
between objects in a state of perfect equipoise between 
them? ... Or could such motion be referred to any- 
thing besides the purest contingency and hap-hazard, or 
possess any property of a rational and accountable act ?" 

1. Alternative volition, we reply, is not by chance or by 
hap-hazard, but by the free origination exerted by the 
Self in the proper conditions, unnecessitated by any 
anterior or exterior forces, putting forth action con- 
sciously its own. If any thinker can form no third con- 
ception which is neither necessity nor chance, but free 
Free self- originating personality, he seems to us to need 
SSv? the creation of a new idea in his mind. He 
stands much in the condition of the old moral 
philosophers, who were perpetually resolving the idea of 
right into utility, happiness, greatest good, until Butler 
arose to convince them that right is nothing but right. 
His maxim was " Everything is itself, and not something 
else." So these thinkers need to understand that unne- 
cessitated self-originated volitional action is not some- 



Sect. 1.] THAT ALTEKNA.TIVITY IS CHANCE. 117 

thing else, as chance or hap-hazard, but is simply itself, 
volitional freedom. 

2. If, by chance, these thinkers mean the total absence 
of cause, internal or external, for effect, that aii the caus- 
is untrue ; for there is all the cause that in the able. 
nature of things can be or need be. For if it be claimed 
that by our view the soul puts forth volition without a 
cause of putting it forth, or that the soul puts forth a 
particular volition without a cause causing it to put 
forth that particular volition, we answer, there is all the 
cause that the nature of causation requires in order to a 
full and complete causation in the case. As has been 
shown in the proper place, there is here no cause, 
because, by the true principles of causation, no cause is 
needed. 

3. Instead of being governed by chance, hap-hazard, or 
caprice, it more properly may be said that the unnecessi- 
tated volitional self governs caprice, preferring it, bring- 
ing it into existence, shaping, limiting, com- Theselfgov . 
pleting its character, or rejecting it and acting emschanc e- 
the contrary. When the caprice is fully accepted, and 
constantly and habitually acted, it is indeed conceived as 
becoming the master. But that mastery is accepted, 
chosen, created, and so far forth governed by the self. 
The course of caprice, or order of law, or lawlessness, is 
freely, unnecessitatedly, and so responsibly selected by 
the agent. 

4. But if the soul does cause its own volitions, with- 
out any cause back of itself, causing it to cause j^ self not 
thus or so, and so uncausedly, it is asked, By governed. 
what is the mind governed ? There are reasoners with 
whom this is an inveterate question, What governs men's 
Wills ? The impulses of their nature look for free- 
dom ; but their theory assuming that Will must be gov- 
erned, that is, absolutely ruled and limited in the most 
infinitesimal movement, they vainly seek for freedom in 
some cause that can thus govern them, and yet leave 



118 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

them free. They seek a contradiction. Just so far forth 
as the Will is free, we reply, it is not governed at all, but 
acts from itself, freely and independently. Government is 
limitation; and exactly so far as it extends is the exclu- 
sion of freedom. In the point and space of freedom 
there is the absence of restriction. The self does indeed 
create, bring into existence, shape and limit, and in all these 
senses necessitate and govern its volitions ; but back of 
the self there is not, nor is there needed to be, by the 
true laws of causation, any cause causing self to cause 
volition to be thus or so. 

5. The ascription of free volition to hap-hazard or 
chance stands in striking contradiction to that moral 
Responsible consciousness by which the soul affirms that 
commensu- er its responsible actions are unnecessitated, put 
forth with power to have done otherwise, 
yet are of all actions most truly personal, appropriable 
by, and imputable truly and justly to, the self alone. 
Where the consciousness acknowledges responsibility, 
it denies chance, abjures necessitation, and affirms free 
self-origination. Where there is responsibility thence is 
the causation, and there the freedom. That independ- 
ence of all necessitative causation by which the self 
originates its own responsible action is indeed unique 
and singular among things ; as unique as responsibility 
itself. The self can lay no blame on contingency, nor on 
incoming causation, nor on necessitation, since itself is 

Blame on self tne so * e source ? an ^ thereby solely responsible 
alone. f or j ts acts> Tfior not obeying the divine com- 

mand, it cannot plead that a stronger causation from 
without placed the obedient volition out of the power 
of the Will. For the criminal volition it cannot plead 
that a stronger force from without necessitated by 
absolute causation the putting it forth. The power and 
the accountability are precisely commensurate. Self is 
solely and uncatjsedly cause ; and self is solely respons- 
ible or meritorious. 



Sect. 1.] THAT ALTERNATIVITY IS CHANCE. 119 

6. In the failure of Logic to identify free causation 
with Chance, recourse is next had to imagination. Free- 
dom is idealized as an omnipotent " no-cause ;" and this 
contingency is personified into a goddess rivaling Fate 
herself. Thus a certain author, Isaac Taylor, makes a 
free agent exclaim, " Wherever and as long as my con- 
duct is governed by reasons and motives, I cheerfully 
consent to be treated as a responsible agent. . . . But 
not so in those dark moments when the fit of contin- 
gency comes upon me ; then I am no longer master of my 
course, but am hurried hither and thither by a power in 
the last degree capricious, whose freakish movements 
neither men, nor angels, nor the Omniscient himself can 
foresee. ... It is the unalienable condition of my exist - 
ence to be governed by a power more stern and inexor- 
able than Fate herself. Alas! Contingency is mistress of 
my destinies." To say, we reply, that the agent, who solely 
shapes his own acts, unobliged by any force from with- 
out, is " no longer master of his own course," is „ 

7 ° Government 

a self-contradiction. It is to say he is not mas- {g ^{g* 
ter of his own course because he, and nothing gency - 
else, is master of his own course. He is master of his 
own course in the purest sense of the terms. To act 
and to Will from self alone surely implies the completest 
mastery in the self. For the soul in the necessitarian 
sense to be " governed by reasons and motives," that is, 
necessitatively fixed ever and always by a particular 
stringent motive force occurring, excluding all power &i 
choosing otherwise, is to be governed by something out 
of the self, by the not-self, and to be at the mercy of con- 
tingent external incoming forces. If the strongest hap- 
pening motive is for wrong and death and By incoming 

forces is con- 

hell, there is no power for choosing right ; the tingency. 
incoming foreign force fixes the choice and the des- 
tiny ; and if any rational man can " cheerfully consent 
to be treated as a responsible agent" without the 
power of choosing right, he is welcome to his very 



120 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

irrational "consent." Our moral sense accepts no such 
decision. 

This " fit of contingency," as before shown, it is in the 
contingency a g en t's power to accept or reject. He is free to 
is governed. it or the contra ry. The "fit" never "comes" 
unless he brings it. It does not necessitate him by a 
stronger resistless impulse. He is not "hurried hither 
and thither by a power " from without. Whatever hur- 
rying is done, is done by himself. If to be controlled by 
solely the self is to be controlled by contingency, then we 
have the absurd equation self=contingency. 

A contingency by which the agent is " hurried hither 
and thither by a power " and is " governed by 

Is Necessity. . 

a power;" which is "in the last degree capri- 
cious," so that he is "no longer master of himself," is not 
freedom but necessity. It is necessity from without the 
agent himself. It differs from the more regular kind of 
necessity by being incalculable and violent in its success- 
ive causations. 

Necessity is one conception ; Contingency is a second ; 
Necessity, Free Agency is a third. Necessity is the con- 

Free Asrency 

contingency! trol of the soul in volition by some foreign 
causation. Contingency (in the sense of chance) is the 
loosening of the volition from all, even the soul's, causa- 
tion. Freedom is the control of the act by causative self. 
In the first an external accident is master ; in the second 
nonentity is master ; in the third the master is the agent 
himself. 



Sect. 2. 1 SELF-DETERMINATION.* INFINITE SERIES. 121 



SECTION SECOND. 
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 



CHAPTEK I. 

SELF-DETERMINATION. INFINITE SERIES. 

The question is asked, " What determines the Will ?" 
That this is an awkward question is evident from the 
fact that its consideration must be preceded by the pre- 
vious question, What does this question mean ? 

"By determining the Will," says Edwards, "if the 
phrase be used with any meaning, must be intended, 
causing that the Will or choice should be thus and not 
otherwise" That is, causing the particular volition. 
And that question has already been amply discussed.* 

The phrase " self-determining power of the Will " we 
generally disuse, not from anything Edwards has argued 
against it, but from its own inherent ambigui- gelf . determ . 
ty. The term self in the phrase may refer to hbgpwen 
the agent, to the power, or to faculty of Will. The 
word Will also may signify either the faculty, or as it 
often does in Edwards, the act of the volition.f These 
last two significations produce questions of very Ambiguous 
different meaning, requiring very different an- term * 
swers. If, according to the latter signification, the ques- 

* See p. 88. 

t From this term arises also the fallacious remark of Professor Bled- 
soe, that the volition " is not determined ; it is simply a determination." 
(Bledsoe on the Will, p. 228.) The remark is founded on the double 
meaning of the word determine as it signifies either to limit or to resolve 
or purpose. 



122 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II 

tion be, What shapes, particularizes, individualizes, or 
specificates the volition ? the answer is, The Will. If, 
according to the former signification, the question be, 
What causes the Will to specificate the volition ? the 
demand is for a very different answer. We are called 
upon now, as formerly,* to furnish a cause back of the Will 
Double ques- causing it to specificate ; and we answer as be- 
answers. fore, the cause is nothing at all. The Will in 
its conditions is a full and adequate cause accounting 
for the effect, and no adequate cause needs any other 
cause to make it effective. It causes a particular effect 

TJNCATTSEDLY. 

Upon the ambiguous term and the usual maxim that 
Edwards's tne Will determines itself, Edwards founds a 
infin?te nt se- lengthened and intricate argument that free- 
dom of the Will involves* the consequence that 
every volition requires an infinite series of anterior voli- 
tions to bring it into existence, thus reducing the doc- 
trine to an absurdity. It is important here to remark that 
inasmuch as this argument, held as it is to be complete 
demonstration, does, in the view of Edwards, exclude all al- 
ternative liberty of Will from the universe, and even from 
prove? not possible conception, it must be held to estab- 
necessity. lish the very strictest and most absolute neces- 
sity, and not a simple certainty in distinction from it. So 
far forth as certainty differs from necessity, this is necessity 
and not certainty. It stands, therefore, in inflexible con- 
tradiction to the declarations of Edwards, (p. 421 and else- 
where,) that it u is called by the name necessity improper- 
ly," and u is more properly called certainty than necessity ." 
By his own definition necessity is that which is "jixed" 
" made sure" and " absurd to be supposed otherwise^ And 
surely nothing, even in mechanics, is more properly the 
subject of these predicates than that connection between 
the Will and particular volition from which all alterna- 
tivity or alteriety is so perfectly excluded that it is not 
* See p. 93. 



Sect. 2.] SELF-DETERMINATION. INFINITE SERIES. 123 

only impossible that it should exist, but impossible that 
it should be conceived to exist. Contrary And counter 

, . . , . ., .,., , power to be 

choice is not only an impossibility but an un- unthinkable. 
thinkability. Nor is it competent for Edwards first to 
prove the sternest necessity, and then out of his abund- 
ance to fling in a share of his conclusion and diminish it 
down to certainty, any more than Euclid may demonstrate 
that the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares 
of the two opposing sides, and then graciously compound 
for the conclusion that it is equal to just a square and a half. 
When we are told therefore that Edwards is "careful 
to say " that he holds * only certainty, we reply that it is 
of no consequence what he says, provided we know what 
he proves, if he proves anything. 

Edwards bases this celebrated argument upon a gra- 
tuitous supposition of his own in regard to the mode by 
which the Will determines itself. " If the Will, which we 
find governs the members of the body, and gov- Based on 

false as- 

erns and determines their actions, does also gov- sumption. 
ern itself, and determine its own motion and actions, it 
doubtless determines them the same way, even by an- 
tecedent volitions." By this gratuitous assumption every 
volition of the Will is held to be, like the body, governed 
by a preceding volition ; but that volition is governed by 
a preceding volition; that by a preceding; so that by 
computation every volition is preceded by an infinite series 
of volitions ; each one of which series has its own anterior 
infinite series, with branchings backward into infinities 
of infinities. Edwards expands the argument through 
nearly three pages, demonstrating, with many a laby- 
rinthine fold, over and over again, that " this Arminian 
notion of liberty of the Will is repugnant to itself, and 
shuts itself wholly out of the world."* 

* The argument of the infinite series, so formally framed by Edwards 
to prove the absurdity of alternative Will, might be paralleled about as 
effectively in relation to the obligation to right, to consciousness, to 
cause, and to the possible exertion of power. 

Why am I obligated to do right ? Because it is right. But why am 



124 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

The answer which, we have already given to the ques- 
tion, What determines the Will ? if valid, empties this 
famous demonstration of all substance, leaving of it noth- 
ing but a very sonorous reverberation. If the Will is 
determined by nothing whatever, then it is a superflu- 
ous benevolence for Edwards to furnish us the method 
by which it is done. If it is not done at all, we may 
venture to assume that it is done in no way at all. If 
done in no way at all, then it is not done by an anteced- 
ent volition, and consequently the entire tail of the in- 
finite series is completely cut off. 

Should the question be asked, What causes an alterna- 
tive adequate cause to produce or cause a particular effect? 
Same, ques- the answer might be, It causes itself; and then 
ative terms, instead of a self-determining power we should 
have a self-causing power in every cause in order to 
causing an effect. The answer, though awkward, would 
nevertheless be true ; provided it does not imply in such 
self-causation any new antecedental element; for that 
would bring in the infinite series. All that could be 
meant by the answer is, that it belongs to the very na- 
ture of cause to bring itself by its own inherent force to 
the production of the effect. 

Edwards proceeds to "invent" several "evasions," as 
Edwards's he is pleased to call them, and graciously be- 

"Arminian * _ . . .. ° J 

evasions." stow tnem on the Armmians. JN o one of them 
is identical with the reply which we have here furnished, 

I obligated to regard that right? Because that right is right; and so 
on forever. 

Consciousness is to know that I know ; but I cannot know that I 
.know unless I know that I know that I know, etc. 

Cause in order to an effect must put forth a causative act ; but that caus- 
ative act being an effect requires a previous causative act, and that a pre- 
vious, and so in infinite series. 

There can be no power unless there be the power to exert that power ; 
but that exertion is an act requiring a previous power to exert it, and 
that exertion a previous, ad mfinitum. 

Whether these are not as valid arguments as the infinite series of Ed- 
wards, and what their validity is, let the reader judge. 



Sect. 2.] SELF-DETERMINATION. INFINITE SERIES. 125 

and we cannot therefore accept the donation. The read- 
er who chooses to examine them will see that we have 
no need to analyze their logic. But there is one which 
we may notice with reference to the above distinction be- 
tween the different imports of the question, What determ- 
ines the Will ? The distinction truly lies between spec- 
ificating the volition, which is done by the Will, and 
causing the Will to specificate the volition, which must 
be done by an entity back of the Will, but which we 
deny to be at all required. Edwards supposes us 
to adopt the " evasion," or answer to the question, 
What determines the Will ? as follows : " The exertion of 
the act is the determination of the act ; for the soul to 
exert a particular volition is for it to cause and determine 
that act of volition." This reply makes us understand 
the question to be, What specificates the volition ? and 
our answer would be, The Will. Edwards in 
refutation of this reply attempts to make the 
due distinction between the two meanings of the question 
and fails. He charges that in this reply " the thing in 
question seems to be forgotten." " The very act of vo- 
lition itself is doubtless . . . a coming to a choice Edwards » s 
between two things or more proposed to it." re P Ucation - 
And now comes the distinction. "But determining 
among external objects of choice is not the same with 
determining the act of choice itself among various acts 
of choice." But the choosing between external objects 
and the determining the act of choice being both not back 
of but in front of the Will, cannot be and are in no way 
required to be different things. That is, no 
"determining the act" is required different 
from the choosing of the object. The difference of the 
object secures, and is one of the constituent peculiarities 
of, the particular choice. If there be three objects, A, B, 
and C, the selection of either object will secure the 
specific particularity of the choice. All the difference 
between the choices will be that A, or B, or C will be 



126 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

chosen. The choosing the object is the shaping and 
bringing the choice into existence. Both the choosing 
the object, and the determining the act of choice, imply- 
that the meaning of the question, What determines the 
Will ? is, What specificates the volition ? The answer 
is, The Will ; and to specificate the volition is all it has 
to do. 

But in the very next sentence Edwards vibrates back 
confusedly to the other meaning of the question. " The 
question is," he says, " What influences, directs, or de- 
termines the mind or Will to come to such a conclusion 
or choice as it does ?" Here the question is made to de- 
mand a cause back of " the mind or Will," causing it to 
specificate the volition. Our reply is as before. Noth- 
ing does, or is required to cause the Will, anteriorly, to 
specificate the volition ; and that breaks Edwards's cob- 
web. He goes on to ask, " Or what is the cause, ground, 
or reason why it concludes thus and not otherwise?" 
We again reply, No anterior "cause" is required; the 
word "ground" here is ambiguous, and demands no an- 
swer; and the "reason" or condition is, the motive, 
which, as is elsewhere shown, is no necessitative cause 
for the particular volition. Edwards continues to say, 
" Now it must be answered, according to the Arminian 
notion of freedom, that the Will influences, orders, and 
determines itself thus to act. And if it does, I say it 
must be by some antecedent act." But, we reply, as our 
"notion of freedom" requires no anterior causing or or- 
dering of the Will to act, as we hold the Will in its con- 
dition to be a complete caus.e acting uncausedly, there is 
no requisition for any " antecedent act." And so again 
the necessitarian cobweb is broken. 

As has been before remarked, when the Divine Law 
requires that an agent choose otherwise than he does 
choose, the question arises, Has he power in the case to 
choose otherwise than he does choose? The question 
supposes that the choosing otherwise would be simply 



Sect. 2.] SELF-DETEKMINATION. INFINITE SERIES. 127 

an act of choice. "Whichever way the volitional Alternative 
action is, it is an act of choice and nothing pi™ 06 
more. Though there be power of choosing either way, 
yet whether it choose this way, or that way, or the other 
way, all it does when it acts is simply and solely to choose, 
and nothing more is required. If the Will choose oth- 
erwise than a supposed way, there is in that case no more 
choosing to choose than if it chose the supposed way. That 
other choice would be as simply a choice as the choice 
actually put forth. Whichever way it chooses there is 
simply a Will putting forth a choice. And the simple 
question is, Has the Will power to put forth either simple 
choice ? To which our reply is affirmative. Nothingmore 
And having the alternative conditions before thanchoi ce. 
it, endowed with power for either way, whichever way 
it puts forth it does so without needing or having any 
causation back of it. There is a power of choosing either 
one of several different ways, and the exercise of it is 
the choosing either one of these ways. 

To a statement of Dr. West, who says " the sense in 
which we use self-determination is simply this that we 
ourselves determine ;" and that we are u the de- younger Ed- 
terminers in the active voice;" the Younger wards 
Edwards replies (p. 327) that Dr. Edwards perfectly 
agrees with such a view. " We grant that we are de- 
terminers in the active, and yet assert that we are de- 
termined, or are caused to determine by some extrinsic 
cause, at the same time, and with respect to the same act. 
As when a man hears a sound he is the hearer Ide ntifiesde- 
in the active voice, and yet is caused to hear f r s ™n n sa|on 
the same sound by something extrinsic to him- 
self." We pass by the fact here, that by this statement 
the volition is rendered as necessitated as the sensation. 
The true difference between the two is, as we maintain, 
that the determined act of hearing is performed without, 
and the determinate act of volition is performed with the 
power of other action instead. Both may be in the act- 



128 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

ive voice ; but both are not active with an alternative 
power. 

Again, the Younger Edwards (p. 334) propounds the 
following dilemma : "If we cause our own volitions at all, 
ms dilemma we cause them by a previous volition, or with- 
voiition. out such a volition." Undoubtedly. And the 
horn we accept is " without." " If we cause them by a 
previous volition," then follows the infinite series. " If 
we cause them without such volition, we cause them 
involuntarily, without any design, any motive or agency." 
No volition, we reply, is voluntary, but volitional.* 
But that an alternative volition such as we state it is 
without "any design, auy motive or agency," is not 
admitted, and is without proof. 



CHAPTEE II. 

NATURE OF MOTIVE INFLUENCES. 

The terms denoting the comparison of motives, espe- 
cially as used by necessitarians, are derived from various 
Physical epi- physical sources. The favorite descriptive 

thets of mo- x ^ . . _ . . , x 

tives. terms are the weightiest motive, the strongest 

motive, the highest motive. Thus the dimensions of ma- 
terial objects and the forces of physical dynamics are 
ascribed to mental operations. They are endowed with 
an exact mathematical commensurability ; and were our 
faculties sufficiently clear and penetrating to ascertain 
with sufficient precision, we should be able, it is assumed, 
to label antecedently the proper motive as, relatively to 
the given Will, "weightiest," "strongest," "highest." 
And it is in this superior power of perception consists 
the nature of the divine foreknowledge of human actions. 
* See p. 22. 



Sect. 2.] NATUKE OF MOTIVE INFLUENCES. 129 

God's knowledge of the future depends on the causative 
series of results. Omniscience travels through the future 
on the bridge of causation. Surely the physical nature 
of the very terms used should warn these philosophers 
of the danger of error. Certainly the application of 
mathematics to quantities and weights of thought is a 
very questionable dogma. Nor is there any reason to 
know or to suppose that any acuter power Comparabili . 
would enable us to detect what does not be- mensurabu-" 
long to their intrinsic nature. The qualities of lty ' 
thought, like other qualities, may be comparable without 
being commensurable. 

The comparability of motives may be supposably as 
certained either from extra-volitional or from volitional or 

... ., rr , 1 _ extra- voli- 

volitional sources, lhus we may compare the tionai. 
different degrees of excitement in an emotion, a moral feel- 
ing, a desire, a fear, a sense of obligation. Some we may 
know to be pre volition ally and intrinsically intenser than 
others. Impressions made by external objects upon the 
mind are comparable ; and where the external object is 
itself mathematically commensurable, there arises the 
most plausible appearance of a mathematical commensu- 
rability in the impression. A thousand dollars may make 
a stronger impression on a miser's mind than can nine 
hundred and ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, and 
that greater impression may, for aught we know, be pro- 
nounced arithmetically exact in its surplusage. But pre- 
volitional impressions are not so properly motives in 
themselves, but in their relation to the Will. 

"What is in truth meant by the highest or strongest 
motive must be derived from the Will itself; volitional 
and thence we have this definition, which is all ment. 
important to this discussion, that the so-called strength 
of a motive is the comparative prevalence which 
the Will assigns it in its own action. Or, oth- 
erwise, it is the nearness with which the Will comes to act- 
ing according with or to it. 

9 



130 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

Volitionally considered, (the only true mode of consider- 
ation,) the so-called strength of a motive may be again 
defined the degree of probability that the Will will choose 
Further de- ^ n accordance with it or on account of it. And 
fined - it is most important to remark that the result is 

not always, nor in most cases necessarily, as the highest 
probability. The Will may choose for the higher or for 
the lower. And as the Will may choose for a lower 
rather than for a higher probability, so the Will may 
choose on account of what is called antecedently a weak- 
er over a stronger motive. And hereby is once for all 
established the difference between mechanical force and 
motive influence, that whereas in the former by necessity 
the greater effect results from greater force ; in the lat- 
ter the less is possible from the greater, the greater from 
the less. 

That result is not as the highest probability is shown 
in the Doctrine of Contingencies or Probabilities. The 
chance may be improbable and yet prove successful. 
Doctrine, of So the volition calculably improbable may be- 
ties. come the actual. On the contrary, there may 

be the highest probability and yet a failure. And this is 
equivalent to saying there may be the strongest motive 
and yet the Will reject it. Aggregate calculations are 
in a degree reliable in practice ; and yet individual results 
are fallible. A margin of so-called reliable certainty there 
Result not as * s ' tnat * s °^ probability, so strong that a quiet 
probability. an( j se ttled reliance is practically reposed upon 
it. For life is practically based on probabilities. But 
when the probability is raised so high that it is ab- 
surd to expect that it is ever reversed, we arrive at ne- 
cessity. 

The intrinsic strength of a motive antecedently to its 
effect in volition must consist in the strength of some pre- 
volitional mental operation ; that is, in the intensity or 
Preypiitionai excitement of some previous feeling or the pos- 
etrength. itiveness of some intellection. It is only 






Sect. 2.] NATURE OF MOTIVE INFLUENCES. 131 

through these that any motive can be called intrinsically 
strong antecedently to the Will. It may, then, be granted 
that where there is an opposition of motives, the proba- 
bilities are as the above-named intensity or positiveness. 
Yet, as we have already illustrated, the result is not al- 
ways as the strongest probability, that is, as the intrinsic- 
ally or prevolitionally strongest motive. Relatively to 
the prevolitional faculties, the strongest motive often fails ; 
relative to the Will, the strongest motive is but another 
term for the accorded motive. 

That a six may be the next cast by a player at dice 
may be a fair probability. That it should oc- 

J . . l . . . ,,, ,, Illustration. 

cur twice in succession is improbable; but 
though the stronger probability be against it, it does and 
may occur. Still stronger the probability against its oc- 
curring thrice ; but against that stronger improbability 
it is yet a possible result. Four and five are increasing- 
ly improbable, and possible in diminishing and doubtful 
degrees, and can hardly be supposed able to happen. 
At six or seven perhaps the probability is held to have 
ceased ; and as the synthesis of causes exists in the cos- 
mos, possibility is excluded and absolute necessity pre- 
vails. So under a certain state of intense pre- Degrees of 
volitional strength of motive it may be in the D robabmt y- 
highest degree probable, affirmatively or negatively, that 
a given volition will be put forth, and yet that highest 
probability may fail. The probability may diminish and 
reversely be opposed and yet succeed. Against increas- 
ing balances of improbability the event may occur, but 
with diminishing possibility. But when the point is at- 
tained, though but indistinctly visible to observation, at 
which it is true that such a choice never would be made, 
by any rational free agent, either actual or possible to 
exist, necessity commences and normally responsibility is 
at an end. When from the very nature of things a choice 
is such that, though the conditions be repeated an infinite 
number of times, it is self-evident or intrinsically a fact 



132 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

that no Will would ever put it forth, as true a necessity 
Point of ne- * s attained as rules over matter, or over the 

cessity. passive operations of mind. It is in this inter- 
val of area, between opposite necessities, where event 
may overrule probabilities, that freedom and respons- 
ibility exist. As human perception covers a nar- 
row interspace between two unknowables, so human 
freedom covers a narrow interspace between two ne- 
cessities. 

It may indeed be said that at each single throw the 
upturn of a six is possible, no matter how many times it 
has been repeated ; and as it is possible each single time, 
so it is possible an infinite number of times. Distribu- 
Distributive lively (as the logicians say) or individually, 

afiiec^e 1111 tn i s mav ^ e admitted to be true ; and yet it is 

necessity, collectively untrue. Each particular case is 
held possible, but not all the cases together. More than 
a given cycle of cases (whose terminal point cannot be 
exactly fixed,) cannot be.* We know this comprehen- 
sively, because we know that such is the synthesis of 
causes and causations in the system of things that an 
adamantine estopment exists at some point. It may be 
true that in a system of probation an agent may be able 
to do right each single thne and yet may not be able to 
do right collectively through all time. In the presence of 
some constant powerful temptation, from which he is never 
Constant protected a moment, an agent may be able to 

temptation res i S £ eac h gm gi e time without the ability to 
resist through the whole. And so Wesley reasons 
against Taylor, that Adam's one sin did not prove him 
depraved ; for any one sin may be committed by a pure 
free agent ; but how comes it, he asks, that all sin univers- 
ally and constantly ? This is not solved by saying a pure 
free agent may sin any one time, therefore he may sin all 
times. What is distributively true is not therefore col- 
lectively true. The supposition that an infinite series of 
* See pp. 167, 225, 335, 339. 



Sect. 2.] NATURE OF MOTIVE INFLUENCES. 133 

sixes might be cast with a perpetually decreas- May.be coi- 
ing probability down to the infinitely small, cesity. 
yields no result.. A power infinitely small for a volition 
would furnish no basis to the view of common sense for 
responsibility. 

The contingency thus calculable is in reality grounded 
in Will. For casting a six is the result of a cer- 
tain method of motions by the player. A series of 
minute and unseen volitional and muscular causations 
eventuates the result. Could the same method be per- 
fornfed any number of times the same result would 
follow. The method being produced by the volitions, 
the contingencies are all really based in the Will of the 
player. Strictly, then, there is external contingency, 
but no intrinsic chance in the matter. Though, phenom- 
enally, freedom is thus illustrated by chance, their bases 
are different. A chance event is one whose cause being 
concealed is but uncertainly calculated ; a free volition is 
one whose alternativity, and so measurable incalculability, 
is grounded in the agent's nature. The illustration of 
freedom from chance, indeed, has but a negative value, 
as showing that Edwards's application of the logic of 
mechanical dynamics to Will is not the only possible 
method of reasoning. Thereby our thought is enabled 
once for all to emancipate the sequence of motive and 
volition from Causative Necessity or Invariable Law. 

The maxim that a the effect is the measure of the 
cause " * has a double meaning, and is, under Effect meas 
limitation, 'true in both. The effect may be ureofca ^ e - 
the measure of the cause either intrinsically, or as con- 
ventionally assigned. In the former case the effect is 
not only the measure, but the manifestation of the ante- 
cedent intrinsic amount of causation. Every infinites- 
imal addition or subtraction of intrinsic caus- . , 

,. , t . . t ™ Essentially. 

ality has its necessary showing m the enect. 
Such is the fact in all cases of physical or non-volitional 
* Hume, And also Edwards, as quoted, p. 97. 



134 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. TPartll, 

causation. The effect, on the contrary, can be only a 
conventional or assigned measure, when there is no exact 
. convention- intrinsic proportion in the causality, and the ef- 
aUy - feet is merely an assumed test of its greater or 

less amount. The greater or less amount of the mat- 
ter, or contents, making up the antecedent condition 
does not always show itself in the result. Here the 
result is no measure of the intrinsic antecedent 
force, but is held so arbitrarily because there is no 
other measure. In the physical instance the anterior 
causality measures out the fixed proportionalresuR ; in 
the volitional the result creates all the measurement 
there is for the antecedency. More properly we may 
therefore say that in the former case the antecedent 
causality is the fixing measure of the effect ; in the latter 
the result is the conventionally assigned measure of the 
antecedent influence. 

We are now able to apply these views to illustrate the 
nature of what are called influences^ that is, motive influ- 
ences^ in relation to Will. As Will acts more or less in 
accordance with such influences, there is a due propri- 
ety in saying that influences act upon Will. But there 
must be most clearly understood, as resulting from our 
statements thus far, the distinction between a physical 
force and a volitional influence. 

A physical force is the same as a physical cause, or 
rather it is as causation acting to produce effect. Its 
effect is the fixed and proportional manifestation of the 
real and intrinsic causation. A certain amount of force 
manifests itself in a certain amount of effect. 

A volitional or motive influence has not in the result 
any absolute and precise proportional manifestation and 
fixed exhaustive of its intrinsic amount. Its connec- 
tion with result is contingent. That is, the greater 
intrinsic intensity constitutes an external probability of 
the proportionate result, yet neither the necessity nor 
absolute certainty. For, as in the doctrine of contingen- 



Sect. 2. J NATURE OF MOTIVE INFLUENCES. 135 

cies, as already illustrated, the greater probability may 
fail, the lesser probability may result. This establishes 
a doctrine of contingent motive probability. 

This contingent character of motive influence is corre- 
spondent with the alternative character of that which is 
its sole possible object — Will. An alternative contingency 
Will and a contingent motive influence are influence, 
correlatives. They mutually explain and sustain each 
other. To admit either is to admit both. And so a 
unipotent Will and a necessary motive influence are cor- 
relatives. He who is compelled to admit one is com- 
pelled to admit the other. It will be a mere contro- 
versy about a word to say that an influence which does 
not produce effect is no influence. That may be legiti- 
mately called an influence which is conceived as poten- 
tially such though contingently. That may be legiti- 
mately called an influence, it is important to add, which 
is conceived as possessing an intrinsic probability for 
result, though the higher probability be a contingency 
for which there exists power of failure. If so, then 
contingent motive influence is established, and the 
doctrine of volitional necessity is at an end. The rela- 
tion between physical force and effect is necessity; the 
relation between motive and volition is contingency. 

These views illustrate our use of the term Contin- 
gency. We do not call the action of Will contingent, 
but rather free. The word Contingency, by habitual 
association, approximates so near the idea of Termcontin . 
accident that it should scarce be made the gency - 
characteristic term for volitional action, It implies a 
sort of blindness in its subject which may not improp- 
erly be attributed to motive, in its influence toward 
Will, but not to the Will, that is, to the agent himself. 
Or, we may say, that while freedom is the intrinsic 
quality of the agent in volition, contingency is the exte^ 
rior view of the same thing. To us, as we contemplate 
it from without, the act which is free is phenomenally 



136 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

contingent, for we are previously uncertain which way- 
it will turn. To the motive itself the result is contin- 
gent, for the motive is blind, and its success may or 
may not result. 

It may be granted that where a given course is urged 
Prevoiitionai upon the Will by some highly excited feeling 

measure of n , tit. 

motive. antecedent, or by some moral obligation, or 
by some reasonableness, or some calculable interest, 
there may be in each of these antecedents an intrinsic 
comparable strength constituting an anterior probability, 
which the mind admits, that the choice will accord 
with it. The probability however which is the stronger 
may fail and the weaker prevail. The probability may 
be so strong as to produce that feeling of subjective re- 
pose called assurance, reliance, or, less properly, certain- 
ty, and yet fail. It is not until the condition of motivity 
is such that it is true that all Will as Will would decide 
but a given way, that necessity commences and responsi- 
bility ceases. 

A volition, a train of volitions, may be so probable as 
to be reliably certain, that is, probable, and be practically 
far beyond all rational doubt before it become metaphys- 
ically necessary. We rely on the undoubted purposes of 
Reliability . other s in many cases with as much repose as we 
ty. do upon the stability of physical objects and 

causations without confounding the practical reliability 
of the former with the absolute necessity of the latter.* 

From these elucidations we have the following re- 
sults : 

1. The apparent contingencies of human action are ex- 
plained, being verified by their bases in the very nature 
of Will. Human behaviors are truly to our eye external- 
ly or phenomenally made up of certainties and uncertain- 
ties blended or alternating. This contingency arises in 
the category of chances from our ignorance of the causes; 
and it arises, in the case of Will, from the very intrinsic 
* See p. 164, 



Sect. 2.] NATURE OF MOTIVE INFLUENCES. 137 

nature of the cause. There is a phenomenal resemblance ; 
hut the essential base is different. 

2. Will is made to appear, as it reveals itself in con- 
sciousness, not a bleak, mechanical thing. It is not a 
projectile made to protrude or withdraw, as by a spring, 
according to the rigid forces that propel it. It acts, in 
the natural alternations of the soul, with a free living 
power. 

3. We have the explanation how motives haVe a living 
and proximately calculable influence on action, without 
fastening or locking its movement as with an iron bolt. 
We see how appeals to feeling, to reason, to conscience, 
are reasonable appliances, and rightly expected to im- 
press the mind and reach the Will, without squarely pro- 
ducing in it a fixed motion according to the proportion 
of solid momentum applied, or securing it as a fixed in- 
variable sequence. We see how the strongest appeals 
and the most powerful impression may meet with prompt 
repulse from no other assignable cause than a determinate 
Will. Hereby we are presented in theory with a view 
of the things, creating in our minds precisely the same 
impressions as naturally result from the contemplation of 
their reality in life. 

These principles furnish us with solutions of many of 
the sophisms of necessitarianism. 

1. We may test Edwards's doctrine of the "fixed" 
gradational antecedent strength of motives. (P. 132.) 
" There is," says he, " such a thing as diversity Prevpiitionai 
of strength of motives to choice, previous to force. 
the choice itself." Motives, he proceeds to argue, have 
an antecedent "strength" because "they do previously 
invite, induce, excite, and dispose the mind to action," 
or to " volition previous to volition itself," and that pre- 
vious " strength " is causation, and the effect is necessary 
upon the cause. That there are differences of intensity 
of feeling, of clearness of intellectual conviction, or solem- 



138 NECESSITAKIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

nity of sense of moral obligation, prevolitionally existing, 
we may abundantly admit. How far these are of a com- 
mensurable nature, reciprocally, we discuss in the proper 
place.* These prevolitional conditions, we also admit, 
may, by their different degrees, produce a greater or less 
probability that the Will will accord to them what is 
the only test of motive-force, the prevalence by volition. 
Nevertheless the result is not always as the greatest an- 
tecedent force=greatest probability of the volitional ac- 
cordance. The highest of the motives may fail, the lower 
motive may prevail, and Edwards's causational argument 
of necessary effect fails. 

2. We may solve the problem, considered by Sir Will- 
iam Hamilton insoluble, of the Will's being able to 
choose against a stronger motive expressed even in an 
arithmetical form. " On the supposition that the sum of 
the influences (motives, dispositions, tendencies) to voli- 
tion A is equal to 12, and the sum of counter volition 
B equal to 8, can we conceive that the determination 
of volition A should not be necessary ? We can only 
conceive the volition B to be determined by supposing 
that the man creates (calls from non-existence into ex- 
istence) a certain supplement of influences. But this 
creation, as actual, or in itself, is inconceivable, and even 
to conceive the possibility of this inconceivable act we 
must suppose some cause by which the man is determ- 
ined to exert it. We thus in thought never escape de- 
termination and necessity. It will be observed that I do 
not consider this inability to notion any disproof of the 
fact of free will." 

No creation or calling power from non-existence is, we 
reply, needed in the case. The numerals 8 and 12 are 
Arithmetical but representatives of the different degrees of 
equation. anterior probability that the Will will decide in 
favor of A or B. It is a chance as two to three that the 
agent will decide for A ; but this does not settle the ques- 
* See p. 145. 



Sect. 2J NATUKE OF ' MOTIVE INFLUENCES. 139 

tion, as in a counter action of mechanical forces. The 
weaker probability may, in strict accordance with the 
Doctrine of Probabilities, receive the accord of the Will ; 
and B may, without any contradiction to any existing 
truth, be chosen. What is wanting is not creation of new 
power, but use of power already in existence. 

3. We may furnish a rational solution to the question, 
Can an agent choose without a motive? The cases of 
no motive may be reduced to three classes: 1. Where 
the opposite alternatives are perfectly and so equally 
valueless; 2. Where they are equally valuable; and 
3. Where there is value, and so motive on one side, and 
all the no-motive is on the other side. 1. Where there is 
no value, and so no motive on either side, it is a Motiveless 
balance of zeros. Yet from the very definition choice * 
of free Will that it is the power of choosing either of sev- 
eral ways, as well as from the fact that non-action is impos- 
sible, and a choice between the zeros is necessary, this 
case becomes a balance of not only improbabilities, but 
of probabilities. It is equally improbable, that is, equally 
probable, that the Will will select either one. And 
this selection of either one, actually made, would be a 
choice without a motive. 2. Where the value and so 
the motive on each side is equal, there is motive for each, 
but no motive for either over that of the other. Here 
the probabilities are equal, and, as before, (like a case of 
equal probability of casting a six,) the result either way 
is accordant with reason. Such a balance of equal forces 
in physics would prevent action; in volition there would 
be action without antecedent predominant motive. 
3. Where the alternatives are unequal, as zero against 2 
or 3, the probabilities are all on one side, and a possi- 
bility only on the other. The no-motive is a zero, its 
alternative is a unit; and for that unit the chance 
is equal to just the possibility or probability that an 
improbability will result. As the 2 or 3 increases, the 
improbability converges to and finally may arrive at 



140 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

necessity. It is at this necessity that the impossibility 
of choosing without motive is absolute. Such a state of 
motivity for good, for instance, insures an entire depra- 
vation — a total depravity. 

4. Arminians, Edwards argues again, admit that 
motives are necessary to choice; but what motive can 
there be for choice for a lesser motive? He claims, 
hence, to exhibit a clear Arminian contradiction. For 
Arminians hold that the Will cannot act without motive, 
Motive for and yet really hold to a case of acting with- 

tive. out motive ; for what motive can there be for 

acting contrary to the strongest motive? We here 
avail not ourselves of our showing that we hold not 
the doctrine that Will cannot act without motives, nor 
of our future showing of the antecedent incommensura- 
bility of most motives.* Our business now is to apply 
the solution derived from the doctrine of probabilities. 
The choosing for the weakest motive is nothing more 
than choosing according to the lesser probability; and 
then the question, What motive can there be for acting 
in favor of weaker motive ? is just equivalent to the fol- 
lowing question : What probability can there be of an 
event in favor of a lesser probability ? 

The strongest of the motives has only the highest of 
several probabilities in its favor ; yet as the event may 
actually accord for the lower probability, and there is a 
probability that it will, so the volition may actually 
accord with the weaker motive. 

5. Edwards still further argues that the weaker motive 
not only affords no motive for being chosen, but it really 

choice affords a contrary tendency. In such case the 

sfronfLt Will would choose not only without motive 

tendency. ^^ con ^ rar y t0 mo tive. So far as the motive 

is less, so far there is from it a contrary influence. But 

such, we reply, would be simply a case of superior 

counter probability. Let the influence of one motive be 

* See p. 145. 



Sect. 2.] NATURE OF MOTIVE INFLUENCES. 141 

8, and of the other 6 ; the superior probabilities would 
be 8 to 6, and yet the 6 and not the 8 against the con- 
trary tendency may result. 

6. Edwards puts the case of a man with two different 
foods before him, with a superior appetite for one, and 
every other motive perfectly excluded ; there Specimen in _ 
could be no motive, he argues, for the choosing staDce - 
the inferior, and he would choose the superior neces- 
sarily. The comparison of motives would, we reply, be 
as in the preceding paragraph. As to the choice, there 
is either a certainty, or rather reliable probability, that 
he would choose for the superior motive, or, at the 
proper point of increasing probability, a necessity. 

i. Similar was the reasoning of the Younger Edwards 
against West, who admitted that Will could not choose 
unless the object had something in it "eligi- Lesserpiptive 
ble ;" that is, unless there was some quality con- 44ineli s ible -" 
stituting a motive for it. Then, replies Edwards, the 
Will cannot choose for a lesser motive, for that would 
not be "eligible." And yet, we reply, though not on the 
whole " eligible," the object may have in it something 
that is "eligible," and that single item of eligibility 
is motivity. There then arises between the two mo- 
tives two counter probabilities, of which, again, ac- 
cording to the theory of Probabilities, the lesser may 
prevail. 

8. The Younger Edwards asks whether, (p. 352,) "when 
several motives are proposed to a man, he sometimes 
passes by the most persuasive, and follows the least per- 
suasive ? If so, what is the motive in this case." Motive for 
The term "persuasive," we reply, expresses tive. 
not so much a relation to the Will, as to the feelings. 
That an object is more persuasive to the feelings, does 
produce a higher probability that the Will will choose 
in accordance with it as motive ; yet, as before shown, 
the higher probability may fail, and the lower meet with 
accordance. To ask what is the motive for this choos- 



142 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

ing for a lesser motive, is to ask again what is the prob- 
ability in favor of a lesser probability. 

9. These views show the futility of an argument by 
the Younger Edwards (p. 380) to prove the necessitative 
aii influence character of motive influence. " To be influ 

effective in- _ _ _ „ _ 

fluence. enced by motives is to be really and effectually 
influenced, just so far as the influence is exerted by them 
at all. And so far as he is influenced or persuaded by 
them, so far he is governed and determined by them. 
For that is what we mean by a determination by mo- 
tives." " To be influenced by motives," and to " be really 
and effectually influenced," we reply, are not one and the 
same thing in any sense suitable to Edwards's purpose. 
To be " effectually influenced " must mean, to suit his 
purpose, to be so influenced as that the effect is result- 
antly secured and accomplished. But we have already 
shown that the agent may be prevolitionally influenced 
by motive objects, nay, may be most strongly influenced 
by them, and yet the influence be not effectuated in the 
result. The result is not the measure of an antecedent 
intrinsic force, and so is not necessitated. 

10. These views show the fallacy of Edwards's argu- 
ment by Approximation, or rather Recession. (P. 265.) 
Argument by Inducements, he argues, may be presented so 

recession. s tr ng as to be " invincible," which he appre- 
hends Arminians will hold " destroy liberty." Then he 
infers if " invincible " arguments " destroy liberty," half 
as strong will half " destroy " it, a quarter a quarter, 
and so on. The destruction of liberty will be in propor- 
tion to the amount of motive. This reasoning, we reply, 
is parallel to the following argument : a If, at a certain 
limit, approximating probabilities merge into necessity, 
then half that approximation destroys half the probabil- 
ity, a quarter a quarter, and so on. The destruction of 
probability will be in proportion to the approximation." 
But the approach of the probability of the given volition 
to necessity does not diminish the liberty or the power 



Sect. 2.] NATUKE OF MOTIVE INFLUENCES. 143 

for a counter volition ; it is simply a diminution of the 
probability of its exercise, which diminution may be 
cancelled by the free volitional act. 

The increase of difficulty for a free volition or for any 
action is not equivalent to a diminution of power. Sup- 
pose a person able to lift a hundred pound weight. He 
has more difficulty in lifting fifty than in lifting ten ; 
and yet he has just as truly and just as much the power 
to lift fifty as ten. He has the full complete power of 
lifting ninety-nine pounds. And so difficulty for free 
volition is no diminution of power. In the overcoming 
of that difficulty is the probation and trial of virtue. 
That difficulty is no otherwise a diminution of liberty 
than as a requirement of effort. In such effort, and in 
the abolishing by effort all difficulty, and making the 
right easy, natural, and finally necessitative, all proba- 
tionary virtue lies. 

To his chapter upon this point Edwards adds three Cor- 
ollaries, the first of which alone requires any attention. In 
this he argues that if motives are not necessary XT 
causes, producing volitions securatively, then 1^™°*}™! 
exhortations, the presentation of inducements Short* ° f 
and reasons, in order to bring about desired tlons * 
choice, are all in vain. To which we reply, as before in- 
timated,* that the common sense of men does not consid- 
er exhortations as producing volitions necessitatively, de- 
stroying all power of counter choice in the cases in which 
they are complied with, but as being contingent influ- 
ence, probable with given intrinsic force, to result in 
choice, yet leaving a possibility of counter choice. This 
view of the matter leaves full scope for the reasonable- 
ness of exhortations, for the probable calcula- 
tion of contingent results, and for the free play 
of alternative Will. And such are the plain truth and na- 
ture of the case. 

And as motives are not in their nature compulsory, or 
* See p. 137. 



144 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part 11, 

securative of a necessary effect, destroying all counter 
power of choice, so inducements offered or influence 
brought to bear by the divine administration or by the 
DMne infiii- operations of the Holy Spirit, normally leave in 
neceLita- 011 " the a g ent the power of otherwise choosing, and 
tlve * of successfully " resisting the Holy Ghost." It 

is of the very nature of probation, that no influences shall 
be applied to the Will which the Will possesses not full 
power at its own responsibility to reject and nullify. 
The whole world has the full power to reject God and 
his Gospel ; and the reason why the world is not now 
holy is, not that God has withheld anything of all that 
the laws of free probation permits, but that men in the 
use of alternative power, with full volitional ability to do 
otherwise, do restrain the progress of truth, the operations 
of the Divine Spirit, and the course of Grace. 

Predestinationists often claim that the prayers even of 
Arminians presuppose that God may at any time consist- 
Arminian ently with his administrative system convert 
prayers. an y man they are praying for, or even the 
world, at any moment. But in this matter Predestina- 
tionists as truly contradict themselves. They pray, as 
And caivin- tne resu ^ often shows, that God would do con- 
istic trary to his own predestination. Their prayer, 

though itself decreed, is often against God's decrees. 
They pray that God would act contrary to the strong- 
est motive; which themselves say God has no moral 
power to do. That is, they commit these contradictions 
unless all prayer is considered as offered under the 
Consistent proviso that what is asked for be consist- 
grounds, ent with the Divine Will, and is in fact asked 
for so far only as is allowable by the fundamental laws 
of God's administration. Not my will but thine be done, 
tacitly or expressly limits and underlies every true prayer. 
And such a proviso as fully explains the prayer of the 
Arminian as the Predestiuationist. When an Arminian 
prays that God would awaken the public mind to repent- 



Sect. 2. J COMMENSURABILITY OF MOTIVES. 145 



ance, or convert an individual, or spread his Gospel 
through the world, and turn all men's hearts Arminian 
to righteousness, he thereby expresses his earn- tSon. uppos] 
est desire that such things may be accomplished in ac- 
cordance with fundamental laws ; just as when he prays 
that a temporal blessing may be bestowed, as health re- 
stored, or life preserved, he usually expects no unequivocal 
miracle, but trusts that it may be done in such way as 
Infinite Wisdom may devise in accordance with the con- 
stitution of things ; and that on condition of his prayer 
it may be ordered otherwise than if such prayer were not 
offered. We know not how far the prayer of the saints 
is a condition to the goings forth or puttings forth of 
God, nor how fully he requires the co-operation of his 
Church, in order to render possible such displays of his 
truth as will convince the unbelieving, and such impress- 
ions by his Spirit as the free-wills of men in process of 
time will, it is foreseen, accept and obey. Certainly man's 
Will and not God's remissness has prevented the com- 
plete good of the world. Of the world God truly speaks 
when he says, What more could I have done for my 
vineyard. 



CHAPTEE III. 



COMMENSURABILITY OF MOTIVES. VOLITION AS 
GREATEST GOOD. 

That motives prevail by their antecedent strength so 
that the strongest is ever victorious, just as the heaviest 
weight must always turn the scale, is the doctrine of ne- 
cessity. It assumes an exact and infinitely perfect ante- 
cedent commensurability as a certain fact. How true 
this assumption, is a point worth an examination. 

In regard to commensurability things may be 
divided into two classes, those which are measurable by 
each other and those that are not. 

10 



146 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part 11, 

To the first class belong things of the same denomina- 

1 Commen- ^ion, as dimension with dimension, weights 
Bame le de- with weights, and abstract numbers with 
nomination. a k stra ct numbers. And when objects of this 
class come before the mind there is an antecedent com- 
mensurability of motive which on the doctrine of proba- 
bilities renders the result reliably certain or probable, 
and even necessary. 

Where in opposite scales of choice before a miser's 
attention there are ten dollars and a thousand dollars, 
every other inducement being excluded, there can be 
little or no doubt which he will choose. It is a condi- 
tion of motive balance in which all Will would choose 
alike. There is an exact intrinsic commensuration be- 
tween the two objects, establishing an antecedent sub- 
jective probability amounting to reliable certainty, and 
perhaps to even " secured certainty " or necessity, that 
the agent will choose in a particular way. 

To the second class belong all those objects belonging 
to different denominations, or received by the mind 
through different senses, faculties, or impressibilities. 

There is no commensuration or comparableness be- 
tween a pound and a rod ; between the brightness of the 

2 incommen- day an( ^ tne f° rce of magnetic attraction. Still 
surabies. j egs commensurable are material things with 

mental: as the weight of a rock and the honor of a 
gentleman ; the hardness of iron and the sternness of 
Cato ; the length of a walk and the glory of a victory. 

It would not afford much sense to say that this night 
is as dark as this rose is odorous ; that this timber is as 
solid as this woman is beautiful; that this fruit is as 
sweet as that crime is wicked ; that this truth is as clear 
as that desire is strong ; that this music is as sweet as 
that duty is binding ; or that this color is as deep as 
that action is honorable. And yet these comparisons 
may represent the balance of opposite motives antece- 
dent to volition. 



Sect. 2.] COMMENSURABILITY OF MOTIVES. 147 

A cold intellection is not intrinsically commensurable 
with a deep emotion ; nor a sentiment of taste with a 
feeling of moral obligation ; nor a physical appetite with 
a sense of honor or duty. These influences receive their 
degree of prevalence, and consequently their comparative 
so-called strength of motive, from the Will. 

This class of cases makes clear to our consciousness 
the fact that the volitional preference assigned to the 
motive is the actual so-called strength of the motive. 
Nor is there any force in the assumption that if our fac- 
ulties were keen enough we should be able to see that 
even these were intrinsically mathematically commen- 
surable. What we should see were our perceptions 
omnisciently clear is not so certain. But we venture to 
believe that we should see in our responsible volitional 
nature the power to choose independent of the exact 
control of motive necessitation. 

But to all this the objection is sometimes made that 
prevalence is the sole proof of greater antecedent weight 
or force even in mechanical dynamics. We only know, 
for instance, that a certain steam pressure is Antecedency 
cause of the motion of a locomotive only by icai force. 
the motion itself. We know that the stroke of the 
hammer is cause of the entrance of the nail only by the 
sequence. To this we reply : 

1. The intuitive common sense of all mankind cog- 
nizes matter as intrinsically inert and dead.* It pos- 
sesses no intellective power to discover and p^^ from 
select a direction of action, and no inherent *• Inertia - 
force to move itself if it could select. In all these 
respects we find it contrasted with mind, which we can 
as intuitively contemplate as the seat and residence of 
both selective self-direction and dynamical self-activity. 

* This, with, some subsequent passages, was written before the dynam- 
ical theory of matter had become a topic of discussion. The writer has 
seen no ground to change the opinion here expressed. The next sen- 
tence is valid in its argument on any theory of matter. 



148 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

2. As matter is thus inert, it moves only by forceful 
impact from without. A body moving against it must 
2. Require- propel it. Mind thus does cognize the pro- 

ment of im- ,,". 1 , ,. , ^. _ 

pact. pelling and the motion as cause and effect, and 

it recognizes cause and effect as moving from behind 
onward. And as the moved body is inert in itself, the 
mind is compelled to hold that it is passively caused to 
move, and that its motion is not independent and 
concurrent, but dependent, proportioned, and caused. 
It is the antecedent that effectuates the consequent 
and makes it be ; not the being that makes that the 
antecedent. 

3. Of the same sort of matter a given bulk and density 
possess with uniform exactitude a given weight and 

force; so that weight and force are seen to be 
intrinsical, and the movement of the impelled 
body to be a proportionate and necessary effect. By 
induction the same law is extended over all cases, and 
natural philosophy constructs her system on that con- 
clusion, with full confidence in the results. 

4. To all these views of material motion as an effect 
of impulse from without, there is no contradiction, 
4 Conscious- e ^ Qer from consciousness, experience, or moral 

ness. sense. Whereas in Will consciousness finds 

self-activity, experience finds incommensurability of mo- 
tives, and the moral sense denies necessitated volition. 

Others have argued that we have the same proof that 
volition is the exact effect of motive force that there is 
object force that perception is the exact effect of the external 
perception, object. To this we reply, consciousness and 
the moral sense present the most positive contradiction. 
One of the strongest proofs that Will is free we 
derive from the conscious feeling of the inalternativity 
of perception as compared with the alternativity of Will. 
Let our readers on this point consult (besides p. 14) our 
chapters on the Responsibility for Belief, and on the 
proof of Freedom from Consciousness. And this con- 



Sect. 2.] COMMENSURABILITY OF MOTIVES. 149 

scious difference between perception and volition fur- 
nishes an a fortiori proof for the difference between 
matter and Will. 

A due consideration of this antecedent incommensu- 
rability of motives may aid in deciding the Greatest ap _ 
question whether Edwards's maxim be true, P arent e° od 
that the volition is always as the greatest apparent good. 
By this is meant, let us carefully concede, not necessarily, 
the greatest actual good, nor the greatest' absolute good ; 
but what appears to the given mind at the moment 
the greatest good within its survey. According to this 
maxim it may be said that the particular motive receives 
from the prevolitional faculties its decision and charac- 
ter, as greatest apparent good, according to which Will 
always decides. To which we reply, that the prevoli- 
tional faculties do receive and compare the different 
eligibilities presented as commensurable or incommen- 
surable, or as in one point or another preferable; and 
there are particular motivities for which we may cal- 
culate a higher or lower degree of probability of their 
receiving the volitional accordance ; and yet it is matter 
of both observation and consciousness that, while the 
judgment has decided that a course is for the great- 
est good, even cotemporaneously with that Doeg not al 
judgment, the Will often does, from the sug- tSmine vo" 
gestion of some inferior motivity, decide ution * 
against that acknowledged greatest good. In such a 
case the necessitarian will indeed reply, " Yes, but then 
that inferior motivity was to the mind at that moment 
the greatest good." That, we reply, is a paralogism. 
It is the regular necessitarian dodge. The Will, forsooth, 
chooses for the greatest apparent good; for it is of 
course the greatest apparent good if the Will chooses it. 
The intellectual and volitional actions described by 
the poet Horace, 

Meliora video, proboque 
Deteriora sequor, 



150 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

The better I see and approve, the worse I follow, were 
perfectly simultaneous. Even while volitionally prefer- 
ring the worse, he prevolitionally preferred the better. 
Their being meliora, he could see only by comparing the 
two ; and it was while so comparing and seeing that he 
chose the deteriora. He chose for the weaker motive, 
and for the lesser apparent good relatively to his mind 
Choosing for at the moment of choosing. He made up his 
tive. mind prevolitionally that the meliora were 

the greater good ; he made up his mind volitionally by 
choosing for the deteriora. President Mahan truly 
remarks, "How often do we hear individuals affirm, 'If 
I should follow my feelings I should do this; if I 
should follow my judgment I should do that.'" That 
feeling and that judgment present motivities often intrin- 
sically and entirely incommensurable ; whence, then, the 
decision but from the Will ? 

A Southern planter, let us suppose, sees that the 
approaching rebellion will be his absolute ruin unless he 
escapes, which he can do with all his property and ulti- 
mate honor ; yet he determinately says, " I go with my 
As no appar- State." He sees that such course is not to him 
entgood. tne greatest apparent good, but the greatest 
possible ruin; yet he chooses it so seeing — knowingly 
chooses what is no apparent good at all. So far as 
the motives were commensurable he doubtless chose 
for the weaker against the stronger. An Edwards 
might well ask, "What motive had he for so choosing 
against the stronger motive ? It might be replied, None 
at all, yet he so chose. 

If any assert that the most intense and exciting desire 
strongest de- or other emotion is intrinsically the strongest 
prevalent, and always decides the Will, that is denied as 
contrary to experience. Quiet judgment or duty often 
gains the day over the highest human feeling. So the 
boy required to stand the fire by his father's command 
until devoured by the blaze, willed the calmest duty 



Sect. 2.] COMMENSURABILITY OF MOTIVES. 151 

against the highest torture. The Indian wills the coolest 
intellection in spite of the highest agonies. The Wis- 
consin boy who, when required to recant a true state- 
ment, expired under the infliction of repeated whip- 
pings, persisted in the utterance of truth against the 
highest possible immediate motive. How often are 
men of intensest passions accustomed to subdue their 
storm by the stern imperative of Will. How often are 
we called upon to suppress every variety of emotion, 
grief, joy, love, anger, and laughter by the central voli- 
tional energy ? So striking an instance of this was Soc- 
rates, that when a physiognomist told him that his linea- 
ments showed him to be a natural profligate, the philos- 
opher admitted that he w r as so by passion and good only 
by Will. In such cases it is the volitional power which 
strikes the balance, and not the judgment, for the very 
contest is between judgment and feeling. Judgment is 
not the judge, but one of the parties. 

If any one assert that the firmest and coolest intellec- 
tion prevails, every deliberate sinner who, strongest ^ 
knowing and believing that an endless woe is teUection - 
the penalty, commits sin on the slightest temptation is 
proof to the contrary. A moment's gush of feeling over- 
threw the life purposes of Coriolanus ; while Brutus sacri- 
ficed the deeper sense of parental feeling at the require- 
ment of cool calculation. 

The very strongest moral obligation, fully acknowl- 
edged and most deeply felt, is made to yield to gtrongest 
the slightest desire, interest, point of honor, or moral force 
cesthetic gratification. The preference of less to greater, 
even as they confessedly appear to the individual mind 
at the moment, is here often pre-eminently marked. 

If any say that the strongest motive prevails because 

that is strongest which the Will chooses, he The preva- 

, . t/»i 7 lent is the 

gives up the question. It by the strongest mo- strongest. 

tive is meant simply the motive chosen, then to say that 

the strongest motive prevails is only to say that the mo- 



152 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [PartH, 

tive chosen prevails, or the motive chosen is the motive 
chosen. It concedes our position that the 
strength of a motive is the comparative preva- 
lence which the Will in its own action assigns to it, or 
is the nearness to which the Will conies to acting on ac- 
count of it. Men, thereby, do not always choose what 
they most desire, nor what they think best, nor what 
they think they ought ; but for these or some other eli- 
gibility ; and for whichever eligibility they choose, that, 
forsooth, is the strongest motive. 

That motives are not subjectively and intrinsically com- 
mensurable, either geometrically or arithmeti- 

Incommen- ° J 

lnd abi i>oc- ca ^y> * s confirmed by the doctrine of contin- 
^r?babm- gencies. Suppose two players at dice, one of 
whom has two sixes and the other has three. 
The goodness of their chances therefore is as two to three. 
That is, the latter has one third a better chance than the 
former. His lot is as a motive which is one third better 
than its opposite. Yet though the better chance has the 
higher probability than the other, yet it may fail and at- 
tain but an inferior result. So the so-called stronger 
motive may fail of its comparative result. When com- 
pared in regard to their results, they are utterly incapa- 
ble of exact commensuration. There is no adding them 
so as to produce an exact sum ; there is no subtracting 
them so as to obtain a precise remainder; there is no 
commeasuring them so as to obtain exact comparative 
magnitudes. Their true superiority consists in their prev- 
alence ; which the volition does not reveal as occultly in- 
trinsic in them, but creates. Opposite probabilities are 
comparable, but not with absolute exactness commensu- 
rable. 

This non-commensurability of motives appears in vari- 

instances of ous phases of life. A self-interest and a sense 

mSisurabU- of the heroic stand before the agent's attention ; 

there is no intrinsic commensurability ; is it not 

the Will that decides between them ? A man will sac- 



Sect. 2.] COMMENSURABILITY OF MOTIVES. 153 

rifice property, life, every selfish interest, and encounter 
the most terrible forms of danger from a point of honor. 
Another man will say, " Burn my private property if it 
will serve the public good." Doubtless, as has been else- 
where shown, some basis for the possibility of such acts 
must be found in the character ; but a large share of that 
character is formed by the volitions, and a large amount 
of solution of the immediate acts must be found in 
Will. 

Leibnitz illustrates the freedom of the Will from that 
eager spontaneity with which men seek after 
happiness. It is necessary ; yet how free ! But 
happiness is by no means the summum bonum, the pole- 
star regulating all our volitions. Bishop Butler and Dr. 
Chalmers (in his Bridgewater Treatise) have well shown 
that we have other than selfish feelings. A man loves a 
thing itself; not merely the happiness he gets Toward hap . 
out of the thing. He may love, not the happi- piness - 
ness, but the thing. A mother loves the well-being of 
her child, not because it will make her happy, but be- 
cause it will make her child happy. Though she was to 
know that well-being but for one moment of her exist- 
ence, how much more of her own happiness would she 
sacrifice than could be crowded into that moment of calm 
intellectual knowing that the child's well-being Happiness 

~ . t n . . not sole ob- 

was secure, bo m myriads of instances sacri- ject. 
fices of selfish feelings of interest must be looked upon 
as instances disproving the doctrine that our own happi- 
ness is the generic motive moving all volitions. 

" However it may be requisite," says the Princeton Es- 
sayist, " in order to men's being responsible, that they be 
able to do as they please or choose, yet who will claim 
that it is deemed necessary that they should have the 
property of choosing the exact contrary of what on the 
whole appears to them most eligible and desirable?" 
—P. 254. 

We " claim " this very thing. If God, for instance, 



154: NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 
The "eiigi- commands the agent to choose the very reverse 

ble" and the n . , .. ... . _ _ . _ _ 

obligatory, ol what appears " most eligible and desirable, 
(a frequent case,) every man of sane moral and common 
sense would affirm that power to that reverse is " neces- 
sary" in order to responsibility for not choosing that re- 
verse. If moral obligation require a choice contrary to 
the apparently " most eligible and desirable," then there 
must be power for that contrary choice. Otherwise there 
is requirement for the performance of the impossible, 
which is infinite injustice, and penalty for the necessary 
and inevitable act, which is the most appalling fatalism. 
It will indeed be doubtless replied, " If God's command 
be obeyed, then God's command will have been the most 
eligible and desirable." But does not this logician see 
that he is landed in the old paralogism ? The most eli- 
gible is chosen, because the chosen was most eligible. 
The volition is the test of the eligibility. 

Since the prevolitional views and feelings are thus, as 
motives, to a great degree incommensurable, whatever 
previous " making up of the mind " precedes a given vo- 
lition which assumes and is based upon their commeas- 
urementmust itself be, as has been before said, (p. 79,) at 
least in its terminal point, volitional and free. It must 
assign the commeasurement, and fix the apprizement and 
balance of the intrinsically incommensurable but compar- 
able and opposing motives. Here plainly a vital point 
of volitional freedom lies. It is not by perception merely 
that a set of motives intrinsically incommensurable are 
commeasured ; but it is the Will which assigns the balance 
of the motives, and often furnishes a determination or 
purpose as to further volition. 

A thing or act may appear in many respects most eligible 
and desirable on one side, while another thing or act may 
appear most eligible and desirable in many respects on 
the other side. There may be no intrinsic commensura- 
bility between them ; and between these two the agent 
through the equipotent Will makes his decision. It 



Sect. 2.] MOTIVES NO NECESSITATIVE CAUSE. 155 

was with a full perception of strongest motive — strong- 
est, that is, in different respects — on both sides that 
young Solomon chose " an understanding heart." It was 
with a full comprehension of the comparative superior 
inducements in different respects of either side that 
young Hercules, in the apologue of Prodicus, chose the 
offers of Virtue rather than of Pleasure. It was with a 
vivid view of strongest motives on opposite sides that 
Cesar chose to cross the Rubicon. There were counter 
alternatives, and according to our definition the agent put 
forth the choosing volition with full power of reverse 
choice instead. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MOTIVES NO NECESSITATIVE CAUSE OF VOLITION. 

By the principles thus far ascertained we meet the ar- 
guments assuming that motives are causes that necessi- 
tate volitions. 

I. The assumption that for the Will to act in ac- 
cordance with a motive, and for it to be caused to act 
by the motive, is essentially the same thing. 

"It comes to just the same thing: to say, the circum- 
stances of the mind are such as tend to sway and turn 
its inclination one way, is the same thing as to say, the 
inclination of the mind, as, under such circumstances, 
tends that way." — Edwards, p. 263. 

The two things are very different. It is one thing to 
say that the extrinsic " circumstances " impose a necessi- 
tative fixation upon the Will to tend a given way ; it is 
another thing to say that " the inclination of the mind," 
that is, the Will, " under such circumstances," with full 
power, normally exercised, of tending either way, "tends 



156 NECESSITARIAN" ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

that way." It is one thing to say that the exterior ob- 
ject secures the volition, excluding power from the Will, 
Accordance to will otherwise ; it is another thing to say 

and causa- - - - -^ . n .,. - ' 

tion differ, that in full possession of power to will other- 
wise, the Will acts in accordance with the exterior object. 
It is one thing to say that the external presentation fixes 
the Will to a given act ; it is another thing to say that 
the Will, in presence of several equally possible alterna- 
tives, acts for that external presentation. The former 
of these respective couples of phrases affirms that mo- 
tive fixes the Will, that the relation of motive is the rela- 
tion of limitative cause and effect, and that the motive 
secures the particular volition as its one solely possible 
result ; the latter affirms that the relation of a given mo- 
tive to will is that of condition to one among several 
other possible results. 

Between the so-called "tendency" of a physical object 
to a given movement and a tendency of the Will to a 
given direction there is a wide difference. The tendency 
Physical and of the physical object is in fixed proportion to 
tendency, the forces applied, and is the inevitable result of 
those forces. The tendency of a tower to lean is in precise 
adjustment to the measure of opposite forces that press 
to a downfall or sustain its erectness. The tendency of 
the Will to a given direction is simply the degree of 
probability that it will act in that direction of which the 
result is fully able to be no exact measure. The tower 
acts in precise fulfillment of the strongest force ; the Will 
acts in no precise fulfillment of the strongest probability. 
With the tower there is no possibility for the strongest 
force to fail ; with the Will there is full adequate power 
for the strongest probability to prove null. 

II. The assumption that motives are causes that neces- 
sitate volition. 

The following is one of many passages to this effect : 
1 If every act of the Will is excited by a motive, then 



"l 



Sect. 2.] MOTIVES NO NECESSITATIVE CAUSE. 157 

that motive is the cause of the act of the Will. If the 
acts of the Will are excited by motives, then motives are 
the causes of their being excited, or what is the same 
thing, the cause of their being put forth into act and ex- 
istence. And if so, the existence of the acts of the Will 
is properly the effect of their motives. Motives do noth- 
ing as motives or inducements but by their influence; 
and so much as is done by their influence is the effect of 
them. For that is the notion of an effect, something 
that is brought to pass by the influence of another thing. 
And if volitions are properly the effects of their mo- 
tives, then they are necessarily connected with their mo- 
tives ; every effect and event being, as was proved before, 
necessarily connected with that which is the proper 
ground and reason of its existence. Thus it is manifest 
that volition is necessary." — P. 126. 

And again the following : 

"And besides, if the acts of the Will are excited by 
motives, those motives are the causes of those acts of the 
Will which makes the acts of the Will necessary / as ef- 
fects necessarily follow the efficiency of the cause." 
—P. 266. 

The points here made are : 

1 . That as volition is produced or excited by motive, 
so the relation of motive and volition is that of inalterna- 
tive cause and effect. 

2. To arise from the "influence" of motives is to be 
the inalternative effect of motives. 

3. To be the effect is to be necessarily caused; 
the relation of cause and effect being a necessary re- 
lation. 

4. Therefore volition is necessarily caused by motive. 
Before directly meeting these points we may note that 

it will not do to say that all this necessity is really but 
" mere certainty" that is, any certainty distinct from the 
most absolute necessity. 

If there be any necessity which is different from cer- 



158 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. Part II, 
Not certain- tainty this must be that very necessity. For 

tybutneces- .., . i . i . • i '* %« 

sity. it is that necessity which exists in the relation 

of inalternative cause and effect ; and it consists in the 
non-existence of power for the effect to be without the 
cause, or to not be with the cause, or to be otherwise 
than caused. It is not the mere non-usance but non-ex- 
istence of such power. This relation is just as nec- 
Nonexist- essary as any other causal relation whatever ; 

counter for Edwards claims that if it can be loosed, 

non-usance, every other causal relation will be loosed and 
atheism will result. So that it is as strong and immov- 
able as any causal relation in the universe ; and all things 
fall to pieces if it be in the least degree softened or in- 
validated. 

To the above points we now state our counter points. 

1. Motive and volition do not stand in the relation of 

inalternative cause and effect. Of volition the cause, the 

sole cause, is Will. Motives are collateral conditions 

Motive and without which there is no adequate power for 

volition. t ke volition to be ; with which there is adequate 
power for the volition not to be. The relation therefore 
is not " fixed ;" the antecedent motive does not " make 
sure " the enacting the volition ; the relation is not that 
of necessity. Notwithstanding the motive, the Will in 
projecting the volition is non-necessitated and free. 

To say that " the acts of the Will are excited by mo- 
tives " is scarcely correct ; for feelings, not volitions, are 
Their reia- the object of excitement. But it is untrue that 

cessity. ' for motives to excite the volition is the same as 
for the motive necessitatively to cause the volition : for 
the motive is only the occasion, and all its acts of excite- 
ment amount to no more than this, that they stand as 
probable conditions opening the way toward which the 
Will thereby acquires opportunity to act with full ade- 
quate power of not acting. And this is very far from 
being "the cause of their being put forth into act and 
existence." 



Sect. 2.] MOTIVES NO NECESSITATIVE CAUSES. 159 

2. For the volition to arise from the influence of mo- 
tives is not the same as to be the effect of motives. To be 
the effect of motives, in the Edwardean sense, is so to de- 
pend for existence upon the motives that the motives ex- 
isting there is no adequate power for the voli- Motive not 

° . A . , cause prop- 

tion not to exist. As motives, then, are no er. 
cause of volitions, so volitions are no effect of motives. 
Volitions are the sequents, and the results, or events of 
motives, not their effects. 

3. The relation of cause and effect is not (so far as 
Will is concerned) a necessary relation. The affirmative 
of this proposition is assumed by Edwards as universal, 
not only in physics, where its universality is admitted, 
but in volitions. On the contrary, we exclude it not only 
from motives in relation to volition, but from Will as 
inalternative cause of inalternative effects. The relation 
between motive and volition we hold to be contingency, 
which in itself is blind ; the relation between Will and 
volition we hold to be alternativity, which is not blind. 
The Will is cause and not the motive, not because the 
relation of necessity exists in the relation between Will 
and volition, but because the position of Will is central 
and constant, while that of motive is subsidiary and 
transient ; and because the Will is the controlling con- 
scious self in the exercise of direct power in producing 
volition. The volition, though effect of this power, inas- 
much as it is able to be withheld, is not necessarily caused. 

4. Nor is volition the necessary result of the motive. 
If, though the motive exist, there is full power for the voli- 
tion to exist or not exist, arising from the causative power 
of the Will, then the relation of the Will to the motive 
is not necessitation, and the volition is not necessary. 
If there be the higher probability that the motive will 
result in the actuality of the volition, and yet the higher 
probability yield to a lower counter probability, then 
the relation between motive and volition is not that 
of necessity. 



160 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

III. The argument by pseudo-synonyms. 

Edwards argues from a series of equivalent terms 
in the following manner : 

" If motives dispose the mind to action, then they cause 
the mind to be disposed ; and to cause the mind to be 
disposed is to cause it to be willing; and to cause it to 
be willing is to cause it to will ; and that is the same 
thing as to be the cause of an act of the Will. And 
yet this same Mr. Chubb holds it to be absurd to 
suppose motive to be the cause of the act of the WHIP 
—P. 143. 

But the question is not whether motives cause the 
soul to will, but whether the cause is necessitative. 
Words expressive of causation, both nouns and verbs, 
we have in the proper place stated, are with allowable 
impropriety applied to designate the influence of motive 
upon Will, without deciding that they express more 
than contingent condition. Motives upon the individual 
Will, or upon the Wills collectively of whole masses, are 
frequently called cause, actual or potential, whether the 
action really follows or not. If a given motive condition 
be accorded with by the Will, it is a resultant cause ; if it 
be not accorded with, it may still be called a cause, 
adequate and potential, yet not resultant. 

IV. The Argument from Approximation. 
Edwards argues that " when motives are very strong all 

will allow that there is some difficulty in going against 
them. If they were yet greater the difficulty would be 
stronger. Unless, therefore, men have an infinite power 
of resistance, the motive influence might be so strong as 
to be impossible to be resisted." Such is the argument 
by approximation. We remark : 

1. If the influence be solely on one side and no altern- 
ative present before the mind oppositely, it has already 
Motives sole- ^ een stated in the proper place that there 
iy one side. j g an objective-limit to freedom in the case. 
If there be opposite motives, then influence, however 



Sect. 2.] MOTIVES NO NECESSITAT1VE CAUSE. 161 

great, cannot be infinite; for it is only the remainder 
after the opposite has been subtracted. 

2. The amount of motive influence must be also meas- 
ured by the receptive capacity of a finite bein^. Motive meas 
~..„. . . • 2 ' ure(i by ca ' 

Only an infinite capacity can receive an inn- pacity. 

nite amount of motive impression, and that same infinite 
capacity aided by an opposite motive (which is always 
to be supposed) can resist it. Human experience amply 
shows that the human Will can, with motive opposite, 
resist the utmost motive influence that human capacity 
can receive. Mrs. Hemans has celebrated in verse the 
boy Casabianca, who was stationed upon shipboard and 
charged by his father not to leave his post, strongest 
He firmly maintained his stand, even though resisted. 
the fire raged before his face, and perished in the flame, 
a martyr of constancy. He withstood the most imme- 
diately intense and powerful motive that could be 
brought to bear upon the human Will. 

But the motive, however strong, unless it be of such 
a force, or of such suddenness of shock as to expel and 
exclude all counter motive, or so decisive that all Will 
as Will would choose in accordance, and so produce an 
objective necessitation, leaves the freedom Counterprob . 
untouched. Between the motives within these abilities - 
limits there will still arise counter probabilities, to which 
the law of probabilities will still apply, that the higher 
may yield to the lower. 

V. The notion that not to be causatively necessitated 
by strongest motive force is an irrational exemption from 
all motive influence, and is to be insanely loose from all 
reason. 

By what can a man be better governed, it is 
asked, than by the highest reason? To be governed 
otherwise is to be the subject of folly. And to 
be no way influenced by it, which, according to 
free-willism, must be the perfection of freedom, would 
be a complete exemption from sense or reason. 

11 



162 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

The highest freedom would therefore be the complet- 
est idiocy. 

If, we reply, by the highest reason is meant the motive 
apparently to the individual most strong, brutes, fools, 
and. madmen are, by the necessitarian theory, as much 
Madmen governed by it as anybody. And this, by any 

st ronTe e st by theory, is the obvious fact; for the volitions of 
such persons very much resemble the mechan- 
ical movement under strongest motive-force which ne- 
cessitarianism implies. If by highest reason is meant the 
absolutely truest wisdom, there can be nothing higher 
and better, or more unlike idiocy or madness, than 
to act, as a free agent, according to its influences. . As a 
free agent, we say, for if it be as a living sensitive autom- 
aton, fixedly giving forth the motions, corporeal or voli- 
Freedom ne- tional, precisely according to the motive-force 

choice of applied, then there can be something better 

highest rea- x \ . . . ° 

son. and nobler, of which this is but the mockery. 

There can be a true free agent, willing, with power 
otherwise, most freely, for the true highest reason. 

The highest reason is often, necessitarianism being 
judge, to the individual the lesser motive. Necessity in 
Necessity oft- such a case excludes him from the highest 

en excludes _ 

it. reason and shuts him to the opposite. Free- 

dom is the condition of choosing according to the high- 
est reason, even though against the relatively strongest 
motive. 

VI. The sum of contradictions. 

Edwards thus sums up the opposite sides of Mr. 
Chubb' s statement of free will : 

" And if we compare these things together we have 
here again a whole heap of inconsistencies. Motives are 
the previous ground and reason of the acts of the Will ; 
yea, the necessary ground and reason of their exertion, 
without which they will not be exerted, and cannot 
in the nature of things take place, and they do excite 
these acts of the Will, and do this by a prevailing influ- 



Sect.2.J MOTIVES NO NECESSITATIVE CAUSE. 163 

ence, yea, an influence which prevails for the production 
of the act of the Will, and for the disposing of the mind 
to it; and yet it is absurd to suppose motive to be a 
cause of an act of the Will, or that a principle of Will is 
moved or caused to be exerted by it, or that it has any 
causality in the production of it, or any causality to be 
the cause of the exertion of the Will." — P. 143. 

The " heap of inconsistencies " lies in the supposed 
contradiction between the two members of the sentence 
lying before and -after the phrase "and yet." But 
taking the words " cause " and u causality " in the latter 
members of the sentence in the necessitative sense, both 
sides are consistent and soundly true. Motives may be 
" the previous ground and reason of the Will, 
yea, the necessary " (in the sense of requisite) J^ re ™ n * 
ground, etc., without which the Will acts not ; freedom - 
they may excite by a prevailing influence, which prevails 
for the act ; they may be fully and freely acted in accord- 
ance with ; " and yet," astonishing as it may seem, the 
said motives may still not be the necessitative causes 
of the volition.* They may still be sidelong conditions, 
without which the Will cannot act ; with each one of 
which there is a probability, more or less strong, that the 
Will will act accordantly; which probability though 
superior may fail by the Will's acting not accordantly, 
or the inferior may prevail by the Will's acting accord- 
antly. And so the motive, though a requisite condition, 
is not a necessitating cause. 



164: NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. |Tart II, 



CHAPTEE V. 

UNIFORMITIES OF VOLITION. 

As free-will has been viewed by those who have little 
Necessity studied its nature to be synonymous with law- 
ferred from lessness, so on the other hand the impossibility 

volitional ' . „ . 

uniformities, of lawlessness and the actual experience of uni- 
formities of volition both in the continuous life of one in- 
dividual and in the aggregate of masses of men, are held 
by some as demonstrative of necessitarianism. A Na- 
poleon through a whole career puts forth an entire series 
of volitions in conformity with one great predominant 
purpose. A jailer's will is, practically, as reliable as the 
dungeon walls. An army with the uniform and concur- 
ring will of its hundred thousand soldiers is the despot's 
reliance for the stability of his throne. A uniform num- 
ber of suicides in a given community, a uniform number 
of letters passing through the post-office, in the course 
of several years marks the uniformity of human volitions. 
On all this I remark : 

1. The very definition of a free Will is in proof that 
Freedom ad- uniformity may be its course as truly as variety 

mitsuniform- . . T „ , -■...-■, _ . , 

ity of action, or irregularity. If the Will can choose either 
way, it can choose in a uniform way. If it can choose 
lawlessly, it can also choose a rule, and ever after put 
forth its choices in accordance with that rule. 
uniformity 2 * ^ n our cna P ter upon the conditions of 
forb^ijmH- "W^ we nave m e; ff ect shown causative limita- 
whe?l el e s l- ti° ns by which however subjectively free it is 
plained. objectively un-free. Thus much uniformity is 
accounted for. 

Positive and ^ n accordance with principles previously laid 

soSfS? unl- down, uniformities of volitions maybe considered 

as taking place frompositive reasons or negative. 



Sect; 2.] UNIFORMITIES OF VOLITION. 165 

The positive methods consist in the influence of mo- 
tives, which we define* as consisting in the 
probabilities with which the Will is likely 
to choose in behalf of such motives. The greater the 
probability, therefore, the more conclusive the explana- 
tion of the fact of the uniformity. The uniformity may 
be calculably so probable as to be practically, though not 
absolutely, certain or necessary. Empirically, though 
not apodictically, the uniformity may be general if not 
universal. 

The negative method by which volitional uniformity 
takes place consists in the mental exclusion of The Nega ^ 
all attention to or thought of a counter course tive * 
or alternative. This is a strictly necessitative limitation 
in the given case, drawing an impassible boundary line 
around the area of volitional freedom. If there is no 
adequate power in the given case of bringing within the 
knowledge or mental comprehension any other than one 
course, volitional freedom is limited to that one course 
and there arises an absolute necessity. 

We may specify four generic cases in which one or the 
other of these two methods takes place, namely, Pour generic 
Corporeal Nature, Dispositions, Standard causes - 
Purposes, and Habits. 

Without adopting the theory of unisubstanceism f as 
held by Spinosa, we may maintain the very fact that* 
substance itself lying at the basis of all agents Corporeal 
forms a most generic basis of unity and uni- naturebase - 
formity. But in addition, all human agents being cor- 
poreal, with a corporiety the same in nature, as if all 
were organic structures made from the same material, pos- 
sess a still more specific ground of natural and necessary 
uniformity. To this bodily basis belongs a set of natural 
properties as of mere matter, a higher set as of corporeal 
matter, and a still higher set as of corporeal organism, in all 
of which all bodies agree and are uniform. These bodily or- 

* See p. 130. f Buchanan's Modern Atheism, p. 14?, 



166 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

ganisms, as they blend with mind and unite with soul, fur- 
nish a large nature-base for an immense amount of uniform 
phenomena. Corporeal form, strength, and peculiarities 
shape a large number of the actions and habits of men. 
Hereditary constitution, national peculiarities, and per- 
sonal idiosyncrasies modify a large part of our man- 
ners, movements, impulses, and mental tendencies. This 
corporeal basis receives a large share of its fixed 
nature at birth, and the born material does, through all 
the changes of age, receive from surrounding circum- 
stances its shaping, as a cast is modeled by its mould. 
Such is the lowest, the nature formation, upon which 
as a primitive the successive strata of character are 
formed. 

By dispositions we mean the entire set of primitive 
primitive prevolitional mental tendencies in the natural 

tendencies, constitution, as well as all those that have 
grown, or been acquired, upon this constitutional base. 
The intellectual views and beliefs, the emotional suscepti- 
bilities, the desires and appetencies, the moral sensibili- 
ties and tendencies, the nervous and sensorial excitabilities, 
the corporeal appetites, all combine to furnish motives, 
amid which the Will decides ; and as these different con- 
stituents exist in different force in different individuals, so 
there exist accordingly greater or less probabilities that 
the choices will or will not take place in given direc- 
tions. As a practical rule, it may be laid down that 
where there is no prevolitional propensity of some one or 
more of these kinds, there will be no corresponding ac- 
tion. As a practical rule, too, where given propensities 
are strong and temptations constant in a given direction, 
a reliable certainty of yielding action arises, which bears 
an exterior resemblance to necessity. The individual who 
cycle of ne- res i s t s once, twice, or thrice, yet is exposed to 

cessity. a p er p e t U al temptation of intense character 
against which he can interpose no excluding barrier, is 
wearied out, and seems as it were not to possess the 



Sect. 2.J UNIFORMITIES OF VOLITION. 167 

amount of capital of resisting strength to maintain 
a perpetual warfare and a perpetual victory.* How- 
ever volitionally free such an agent may be intrin- 
sically, the probabilities of his sinlessness are likely 
to be in inverse proportion to the continuity of his 
exposures. 

These prevolitional tendencies, with their corporeal 
nature-base, when intensely favorable to evil in their char- 
acter, and accepted by the Will, constitute the fountain of 
which evil conduct is the stream. If all adequate possi- 
bilitv of interposing good motive into the Depraved 

. t, •tit i n inability 

mind be wanting, then, by the very laws of to good. 
mind, there is likely to be an absence of volitional free- 
dom for the good. If such is the state of the disposi- 
tions that the love of God cannot be a motive of action, 
then there results a state that may be called total 
spiritual depravity/ and where this exists a spiritual 
renovation is needed, either by injecting the possibility 
of spiritual motive into the dispositions, or by Regenera . 
a correction of the dispositions themselves, or tlon - 
both. And this is Regeneration. Where such a state 
of dispositions or surrounding circumstances, or both, 
exists as that moral motive cannot be interposed as a 
ground of action, then we have a moral depravity or law- 
lessness. 

Where the absence of the possibility of motive for 
good, and so of action, is from the first moment of vo- 
litional capability necessitated, there can be no moral 
probation, responsibility, or just penalty. Where the 
possibility once existed and has been freely and posi- 
tively banished by the agent, the responsibility remains. 
Where it has been congenitally non-existent, but has 
been graciously placed within the reach and freely 
rejected, the responsibility remains. Where the deprav- 
ity is congenital, yet the offer for its regen- Deprayityap . 
eration is freely presented but the retention of P r °P riate( *. 
*See p. 132. 



168 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

depravity is freely preferred, then it is ratified, sanc- 
tioned, and responsibly appropriated.* 

Habits are uniformities of action which may be said 
to grow upon us by repetition. They are uniformities 
of volition, too ; and they are often performed with so 
little deliberation as to acquire a resemblance to in- 
Habits pro- stinct. Positively, habit arises by the influ- 
tiveiy ence of the same recurring motives for which 

the Will will act. These motives are brought up by the 
laws of intellectual association of time, place, objects, and 
causation. Natural impulses seem to spring up in the 
being, physical and psychical, suggesting the usual voli- 
tion. Meantime, negatively, counter motive and counter 
And nega- thought are gradually more perfectly and 

tiveiy. constantly excluded. No other than the given 
way is imagined or enters into the mind. And thus the vo- 
litions move, as in a passage way walled upon either side. 
The wall is an amalgam of blending freedom and necessity. 

Habit, being self-formed, however strong, seldom or 

never ceases to be volitional and responsible. Even 

should the circumscribing wall become hard- 
Responsible. , . ,, rt , „ . ., .,. , 

ened to a "fixed necessity, responsibility can 

perhaps never terminate. No man can build up a pal- 
isade to exclude himself from the path of righteousness 
and then excuse himself for not treading therein. 

Standard Purposes are volitions adopting an extended 
course of volitional actions, and to which, in consequence, 
an extended number of volitions subordinate themselves. 
They are plans, enterprises, resolutions, determinations, 
which contemplate and include a due number of voli- 
tions in obedience to themselves. Yet it is important 
to note that these standard volitions do not of themselves 
directly and of their own power necessitate the subordi- 
nate volitions. A man is free in carrying out his plans 
purposes not an( ^ resolutions. The existence of the plan as 
necessitative. ^ permanent standard motive furnishes the 

* See pp. 328, 400, 



Sect. 2.] UNIFORMITY OF VOLITION. 169 

probability, more or less strong, that the subordinate 
volition will sustain it. The motive may be so perma- 
nent and strong as to create a firm reliability that the 
subordinate volitions will accord. Indirectly, the counter 
motives may be excluded so as to leave the mind com- 
pletely shut up to the positive motive, and a necessita- 
tion is superinduced. Men, thus, may be so absorbed 
in their plans as to cease to be free, alternative agents. 
But they seldom or never thereby lose their responsi- 
bility. 

Men put forth at given points of their life decisive 
volitions to which their whole subsequent history 
becomes more or less subordinated. A person engages 
in a profession, contracts a marriage, under- Generic 
takes an enterprise, becomes absorbed in a volition9 - 
study, which may be a life-long matter. But lesser 
standard purposes there are, covering a much briefer line 
of volitions. A man takes a journey of a few hours, 
undertakes a brief essay, or manufactures a single article. 
The number of subordinate volitions herein included is 
far larger than might at first be imagined, but small in com- 
parison with our life-long settlements. But there are less- 
er inclusive purposes still, which are occurring every hour 
and moment of life, to which their little sets of minor 
volitions subordinate themselves. We cannot walk across 
the floor, or eat a meal, or read a page, or even write a 
single alphabetic character, without a purpose fulfilled by 
lesser volitions. How numerous and rapid the volitions 
by which a lady executes her purpose of playing a tune 
upon the piano ! Indeed, as the tones of music are a 
succession of infinitesimal pulsations or vibrations, melt- 
ing into each other so as to form a flow, so volitional 
most of our courses of action are formed of a flow * 
series of infinitesimal volitions. 

Maxims and opinions may be volitionally so adopted 
as to become standard purposes. An opinion may be 
theoretically believed with no practical effect until the 



170 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. fPart II, 

Will has adopted it as a reason of action. A man may 
disbelieve the Christian religion, and yet may act his 
disbelief so little externally that it may be supposed by 
his acquaintances that he is a theoretic believer until he 
commences a course of open opposition. A large share 
of education consists in the volitional adoption of max- 
Maxims vo- ims and principles as fundamental and perma- 

adopted. nent grounds of action. Repentance and ref- 
ormation are the adoption into practice of a belief of the 
badness of sin, and the preferableness of a right cause. 
By means of all those fundamental adoptions a character 
different from the first and natural constitution is with 
more or less completeness newly formed. 

So largely and effectively do the dispositions, the 
habits, and the standard purposes influence the volitions, 
both by position and impulse, and by excluding counter 
Great extent courses from the view, that the agent, how- 

dom. '" ever intrinsically and by nature free, is to a 
great extent objectively unfree. Perhaps of many lives, 
if not most, or all, a full analysis would show that a large 
majority of the volitions are thus objectively not free. 
And this very consideration may serve to explain the 
error of many thinkers in too hastily inferring that all 
volitions are unfree, and that the agent is not free intrin- 
sically and by nature. They select a few cases which 
are in fact cases of objective necessitation, and draw the 
rash induction of necessity over all volitions, human and 
divine. A large number of the test instances selected in 
the argument between freedom and necessity may be 
cases of necessitation from the above-named influences, 
and so may be hastily held to decide the question. The 
observation of an inquirer may rest mainly upon voli- 
inconciusive ti° ns °f this class ; and so he may fall under 

test cases. ^q i m pression that life is ruled by necessity. 
The true ascertainment of the sorts of choices that are 
hemmed in by objective limitation, may serve as the 
proper guard against these heedless generalizations. 



Sect. 2.] UNIFORMITY OF VOLITION. 171 

Thus, if we have rightly traced the process, is consti- 
tuted character. Upon a basis of corporeal, physiolog- 
ical and mental nature, are overlaid a primary su- 
perstratum of dispositions blending the native and the 
volitional, and a secondary formation of generic pur- 
poses wholly volitional, and formed by repetition into 
a tertiary of habits; and thus we have in his mingled 
constitution of necessitation and freedom an agent 
prepared for daily free responsible action. The question 
arises not only how far this character is neces- is "charac- 

•t ! n n . . tt * er " neces- 

sitatea, but how far it is necessitative. How sitative? 
far is the character a fixed antecedent, limiting and unip- 
otently excluding all but a sole volitional resultancy. 

At start we may repudiate all such one-sided and 
extravagant statements on this subject as the following 
from the Princeton Essays : " All will doubtless admit 
that, although the natural faculty of Will exerts the 
choice, the direction of that choice under given out- 
ward motives is determined not by the bare natural 
faculty, but by its moral state. Thus the faculty of the 
will equally in good and bad men exerts their voli- 
tions; but their moral goodness or badness determ- 
ines the direction and quality of those choices." — P. 255. 
If this indeed be true, then all the actions of a holy 
being must be necessarily holy. How, then, the first 
holy angels sinned, how the first Adam fell, how the 
second Adam was really tempted, how a holy universe 
originated transgression, it would puzzle the Essayist to 
tell. If his doctrine be true, the sinful being must as 
necessarily emit sin as the charcoal emits its black shade ; 
and the holy being must as necessarily shed Then cl?ange 
holy effect as the diamond radiates the bright ™*™ ihle - 
beam. All moral change for either good or evil in the 
finite agent must be by reconstruction from an arbitrary 
interposing omnipotence. From the omnipotent first 
cause all secondary causes must receive the necessitating 
causation of their good or evil effects. Evil as well as 



172 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

good finds from this awful doctrine the primordial, 
necessitating, intentional cause in God. And yet, con- 
tradictorily, this is impossible ; for God, being holy, can 
cause nothing unholy, and so no sin can exist. 

In the first jDlace, large admissions may be readily 
Powerofpast ma( ^ e i n favor of the actual power of the past 
over future. over our p regen t actions, as" well as over the 
permanent nature of our future action. It may be, so far 
as it extends, a real causation, sometimes a necessitation, 
limiting the free futurition. Or it forms a basis of prob- 
able, often of reliable but not apodictical calculation. 
Our every-day life in its details is more or less volunta- 
rily and volitionally surrendered over to its influence. 

1. A character maybe formed with a mind so wholly 
wm drcum- circumscribed within a circle of sensual feelings 
S rlb t e hought- and conceptions, selfish and corrupt maxims, 
sordid purposes and habits, that the complete 
inventory of the thoughts is depraved, and no honorable 
or truly ethical volition is within the catalogue of possi- 
bilities. Of such a character it may be said, without our 
being obliged to define whether it be a case of necessity 
or reliable certainty, that he cannot will nobly or rightly. 
On the other hand, another character may be formed, by 
a noble course of self-education, by the continual rejection 
of the sensual, selfish, and sordid, and the constant adop- 
tion of the honorable, the intellectual, the just, and the 
independent ; so that, finally, everything mean or depraved 
is spontaneously rejected, the motivity of its presented 
alternative being impossible, or repelled by mental exclu- 
sion ; and the man's admirers shall say with possible truth 
that it is impossible that he should have descended to a 
particular vile action. These are cases of reliable prob- 
ability, possibly of necessity. 

Comparatively few, however, in all probability, of these 
are cases of unequivocal necessity ; few or none perhaps 
there are of whom such an impossibility can be affirmed 
in regard to every form of excellence or un worthiness. 



Sect. 2.] UNIFORMITY OF VOLITION. 173 

Even the very permanence of the constitutional base, 
both on the worthy and the unworthy side, secures to a 
very great degree the power of motivity in opposite 
alternatives, and maintains a foundation for a reversal 
of generic determinations, of life-laid plans, and long 
indulged habits. 

There is plentifully in the history of free agents such 
a thing as " acting out of character" There is often 
the action, great or small, which reverses the record of 
a life, or a protracted course of action. He who volitional 
well watches his neighbor, however blind he dictions. 
may be to his own practical self-contradictions, is sure to 
find, even in the life most even in its great outline, plenty 
of minor inconsistencies. Or as Mtiller, in his Doctrine of 
Sin, well says, that both our observation and our subject's 
temptation may occur just at the moment of one of his 
great volitional turning points. From the apostacy of the 
first angels, and the fall of man through the And revolu . 
whole course of human history, we have innu- tlons - 
merable instances of revolutionary volitions, not only 
out q/*the previous character, but shaping a new char- 
acter. The one disastrous sin of Moses, the one great 
complicated crime of David, the apostacy of Solomon, 
the wisest of men, are all proofs how, not only in con- 
trasted traits, but in revolutionary acts, a man may be 

The wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind. 

2. Cases of apparent necessary action from antecedent 
character are often solved upon the principle of contra- 
diction. A man can neither be nor do contradictory 
things at the same moment. He cannot at once main- 
tain and abdicate a given character. 

That original thinker, Pere Buffier, in his Traite des 
Premieres Verites, supposes the question, Can a sage en- 
act the mountebank in the public street? Fenelon had 
decided it to be a moral impossibility ; yet defining, in 
an undertone, this impossibility to be only a very difficult 



174 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. L^art II, 

thing which might sometimes be done. Pere Daniel had 
decided that from want of motive the thing could not be 
done by a true sage. 

Pere Burner decides that the man could play the buf- 
foon, but yet the playing buffoon by a sage could never 
Principle of be done. Why ? Because the buffoon player 
tion. by the very act is no sage. It is the impossi- 

bility of incompatibility or contradiction. Whichever 
side is assumed excludes the other. Ice cannot be 
melted, for to be at once melted and ice is a contradic- 
tion. The carnal heart cannot be subject to the law of 
God, for the heart when conformed to the law is no 
longer carnal. Carnality and conformity to holy law are 
a contradiction. So a perfectly chaste woman cannot be 
a prostitute ; nor a truthful man a liar. And when from 
long observation of a woman or a man we feel confident 
of the character, we take, inductively, the affirmative that 
they are permanently chaste or truthful, and with some 
generous hyperbole we pronounce in the instances that 
she cannot be immodest, that he cannot have grossly lied. 
It is in this principle of contradiction that terms of 
power or want of power are extensively used where many 
have supposed there is only want of willingness. This 
point we discuss in another place.* 

3. From the very nature of this formed character we* 
expect the immediately future action to be in accord- 
ance with it. And this not because the coming action is 
necessitatively shaped by the character, but because visi- 
bly the character is as the sum total of the actions. Or 
rather upon a correct view the character is an amalgam 
of the free volitions and the prevolitional dispositions 
as contemplated together. When a volition comes un- 
character as expected and out of character we accept it, 

the sum of J . n , , 

volitions. correct our previous estimate of the man, and 
add the new fact into the sum total of which his visible 
character is made. 

* See p. 263. 



Sect. 2.] UNIFORMITIES OF VOLITION. 175 

But the power to predict action from previous character 
is often greatly overestimated. Hits of that kind, Power to pre- 
instead of proving the completeness with which ea. 0T 
it can be done, prove the very reverse, for it is the ex- 
traordinary character of the hit that makes it impressive. 
The knowledge of the style of action to be expected is 
usually very generic, and leaves a very broad play for 
varying particulars. When it is specific it is of some 
single trait or two which streaks through the action of 
life. We have a clear idea of a lady's style of motion, 
even in casting a dice ; but how totally we fail to predict 
what depends upon the character of the mo- 0urestimates 
tion, the particular throw she will turn up. Of * eneric - 
the nearest friends with whom we associate, and whose 
character of mind, and habits, and peculiarities we best 
understand, while we can give some general account and 
make some fair general predictions, yet how utterly will 
we be at a loss, ordinarily and every hour of the day, to 
tell what will be the next immediate action, or how 
they will choose in given circumstances. You cannot 
conjecture with any confidence, usually, what, with the 
circumstance before you, will be the words your most 
familiar friend will next pronounce. You can but very 
generically predict in the morning what minuter impossibffl- 
motions, steps, walks your bosom friend will, diction. 
even in a given set of circumstances, perform during the 
day. In all life, character, course of action, there is va- 
riation ever more widely varying, opening new traits to 
view, defying all mechanical calculation, and attesting the 
reality of freedom. 

4. Statistics are cited by necessitarian writers showing . 
that in Paris the amount of crimes, even those crimes 
which may be especially supposed to depend upon indi- 
vidual peculiarities, is annually nearly equal. This is 
held by many to be an arithmetical demonstration of the 
doctrine of volitional necessity. But, 

1. It does not appear why this might not as truly be 



176 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

individual tne case on tne doctrine of freedom as the doc- 
ig e ^gSe nd trine of necessity. In the calculations of con- 
uniformity. ^ingencies, ag we have very fully said,* while 
results of compared large aggregates, in the same condi- 
tions, may approach equality, the contingency of each in- 
dividual case remains still a contingency. If our best 
illustration of the contingencies of freedom is drawn from 
the laws of Probability, what is more reasonably to be ex- 
pected than that the most perfect alternativity of individ- 
ual Will should result in a degree of aggregate uniform- 
ity ? So, though large aggregates of free volitions, sur- 
rounded by the same round of motives, may approach 
equality, the freedom of each individual Will remains. 

2. This uniformity of statistics can be true only so 
long as the aggregate character of the city remains con- 

Aggregate tingently the same. It amounts to this, then, 
freedom, .^at where the aggregate character remains 
the same, the number of individual crimes will be about 
the same; and when the number of individual crimes 
shall change, the aggregate character will change. That 
is, the aggregate character is made of individual facts. 
A city is thus like a stupendous individual, whose 
stages of development are on as stupendous a compara- 
tive scale as its magnitude, but which in its life of cen- 
turies within its compass of surrounding influences acts 
with its full measure of limited freedom. Its free devel- 
opment is partly a sum total of individual freedoms and 
partly organic in character. 

3. But while such statistics show that freedom often 
operates in the aggregate very much by rule, we are con- 

. fident there are others which are, or might be kept, which 
exhibit freedom in its full variations. Accurate Church 
registers, kept by permanent pastors, show very different 
numbers of conversions per year. Some seasons surely 
are remarkable for a much greater religious interest than 
others. The number of public general prayer-meetings 
* See p. 130. 



Sect. 2.] DOUBLE VOLITION. 177 

in New York city has greatly differed in different years. 
Other seasons are specially marked by an extraordinary 
number of burkings or garrotings. Particular periods 
occur of specially numerous suicides, or fires, or steam- 
boat or railroad accidents. If uniformities, thus, prove 
necessity, these irregularities must equally demonstrate 
freedom. From all this we conclude that while it is not 
to be unexpected that freedom should result in great ag- 
gregate uniformities, there are ample enough varieties to 
vindicate the Will from the imputation of necessity. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

DOUBLE VOLITION. 



Falling back upon our first definition that free will is 
competent to choose either of several objects, each several 
object stands before the Will, being an object only as in- 
vested with the motivity. Therein the Will 0bject with 
chooses, by its own one act, either one of the motlYlty - 
several objects, with a stronger probability, perhaps, 
arising from the motivity of choice for one over another, 
yet with the full possibility that the counter of that one 
may be chosen. The freedom lies in the agent in the 
motive conditions, at the initial spring of the volition; so 
that the volition is called free because it springs from a 
free cause, that is, a free agent. The particular ., wm makeg 
object chosen receives its prevalence from the ^ emotlve -" 
Will and by the choice ; so that taking the word Motive 
in the sense of prevalent motive, there is a truth in the 
maxim that "it is the Will that makes the motive." 
For though the choice is subsequent to the perception of 
the eligible or potential motive quality in the object, and 
may be called an alternative consequent of it, yet it is 
that subsequent choice itself by which the potential mo- 

12 



178 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

tive becomes actually prevalent motive, that is, by which 
a motive becomes the motive. 

The motive is often an agreeable or otherwise eligible 
quality in the object chosen. An apple is chosen for its 
Motive-object sweetness as motive ; a rose for its beauty ; a 

and choice- ~ ~ . n . . . 

object. perfume for its fragrance. At other times 
there is a separate motive-object which invests the object 
of choice with its motivity. The game is the motive for 
which the sportsman chooses a gun. Money is the ob- 
ject for which the laborer toils. Yet after all these mo- 
tive-objects lend their motivity to the choice-object and 
thereby render it the choice-object. It is the motivity 
by which the object of volition becomes its object. The 
motivity is the true object in the object and is really 
chosen in it. Necessitarians say we choose what we 
think best ; and if so the said best is ever both the true 
motive and object, one and the same. So that ever and 
always we truly choose the motive when we choose the 
object, by one and the same act. 

These views may refute the imputation by Edwards 
against a certain freedomist, Mr. Chubb, of really hold- 
ing that in every volition we first choose the motive for 
the volition and then we choose the volition. Mr. Chubb 
holds language like this : " Every man has power to act 
chubb's doc- or to refrain from acting, agreeably with or 
trine contrary to any motive that presents." " Every 

man is at liberty to act, or refrain from acting, agreeably 
with or contrary to what each of these motives consid- 
ered singly would excite him to." " Man has power, and 
is as much at liberty to reject the motive that does pre- 
vail, as he has power and is at liberty to reject those rao- 
of choice for tives that do not." These are perspicuous 
motive. ' statements of the truth of the matter. But 
Edwards imputes to them the doctrine that the Will 
first by one volition chooses the motive to which it will 
yield, and then by a second volition acts from the motive. 
Thence would follow not only that each volition is du- 



Sect. 2.] ACTIVITY NO PASSIVITY. 179 

plicate, but that each one of every duplication is also du- 
plicate ad infinitum. But, 

The eligibility, motivity, or excellence borrowed from 
the motive -object is or becomes a quality in the object or 
alternative of volition. It inheres, as quality, and goes to 
make up the object. Now surely it is very absurd to say 
that it requires one choice to choose the quality, and an- 
other to choose the object. The object with its qualities 
stands as alternative with others before the Will ; and the 
agent chooses with full power of choice for either. So that 
Mr. Chubb is correct in saying, " Every man has power 
to act (volitionally) or to refrain from acting, agreeably 
with, or contrary to, any motive that presents." And 
this does not imply that there must be duplicate volitions, 
the one to choose the motive and the other to choose the 
object. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

ACTIVITY NO PASSIVITY. 

Some advocates of the doctrine of volitional freedom 
have made it a part of their argument to maintain that 
there can be an activity without a passivity. Taking the 
liberty which every writer has the right to assume of de- 
fining his own terms and adhering to his definition, in 
the present discussion they have limited the terms act 
and action to the exercise of the Will; and There may 
have thence maintained that there is such a patieWt. ' 
thing as action which is no passion, an agent who is not 
a patient, a mover who is not moved, a doer who is not 
caused to do. 

In reply, Edwards maintains sternly that there can be 
no agent who is not caused to act, and who so contradicted 
far as caused is not a patient. Every mover is b y Edward8 - 



180 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

caused to move, and he moves only as he is moved to 
move. To move and to be moved are but opposite sides 
of the same thing. There is no movement which is not 
a being moved. All agents act as they are caused to 
act ; activity and passivity are inseparable correlatives. 

How strict a fatalism this is, and how truly Edwards, 
who maintains it, is a fatalist, and how his argument ex- 
cludes not merely the use but the existence of power 
of counter choice, we need but leave the reader to de- 
cide. Every agent and every Will is but a term in a 
His doctrine ser i es °f inflexible causations ; the volitional is 
tlinty 1 but as fixed as the material term or unit in the 
necessity. ser i es# The dynamical series is just as rigor- 
ously exact, just as absolute a necessity in contradistinc- 
tion to certainty, in volitional agency as in mechanics or 
any part of natural and physical forces. 

If our view of volitional freedom be true, there is ac- 
tion where there is no passion. There is such a thing as 
an uncaused causal' act. It exists in the Will putting 
uncaused forth its alternative volition. The Will in its 
causal act. p r0 p er conditions is a full and complete cause 
uncausedly effectuating the particular volition.* In the 
particular act, in the putting forth of the volition there 
is a causative-producing which is itself uncaused by any 
thing beside or back of Will, and which, as has been 
No violation shown, the laws of causality do not require to 
ofcausation. ^ e g0 cause( j # j± unipotent cause must in its 
every particular action be caused to put forth that partic- 
ular effect ; but of an alternative cause either one of sev- 
eral particular results may be the effect without any ante- 
cedent to cause that alternative cause to produce that 
particularity. Here, then, is so far an agent not a pa- 
tient, an activity without a passivity, and that without 
any harm to the laws of causation. 

u And this implies," says Edwards, "that action has 
no cause and is no effect; for to be an effect implies 
*Seep. 92. 



Sect. 2.] ACTIVITY NO PASSIVITY. 181 

passiveness, or the being subject to the power and action 
of its cause." Undoubtedly, the "action" is caused by 
the agent in bringing it into existence ; but the agent is 
not caused to bring it into existence. The action, indeed, 
as the receiver of existence, as the abstract fact produced, 
is necessitated to undergo the agent's causation and come 
into being. But the agent is patient to no an- Theagentno 
terior cause necessitating the bringing the act patient - 
into existence. There is an agent no patient. 

This " notion of action," Edwards continues, " implies 
that it has no necessary dependence or connection with 
anything foregoing ; for such a dependence excludes con- 
tingence and implies necessity." Undoubtedly, Act dependg 
the act or deed is dependent on the agent for on actor * 
its existence. As a condition to the fact's existence, the 
factor's existence is necessary ; in the sense, however, 
of requisite. The deed could not exist without the doer, 
or the volition without the wilier. But this proves, not 
conversely, that the agent could not exist without the 
volition, the potential factor without that particular fact. 
Nor does it touch the question whether the Butnot actor 
agent, putting forth the particular volition, onact * 
may not be a cause uncausedly producing effect, and so 
may not be an agent no patient. 

The final argument of Edwards on this point, that 
freedomists require that free choice must be put forth 
by previous free choice, comes under his old fallacy of 
the infinite series. His argument here is in form of a 
dilemma. Free choice must be chosen by free Free choice 
choice, and that is infinite series ; or the mind choice, 
is made subject of free choice without any free choice in 
the matter, and that is necessity. Very well. It then 
follows, and this is all that follows, that the agent is 
necessarily a free agent. For, to be the subject of 
free choice, is to be a free agent ; to be so without any 
previous free choice of our own is to be necessarily a 
free agent. But that proves not that the free choice 



182 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

itself is in its particularity necessitated. It still leaves 
us an agent, no patient. There is a free cause which 
causes a particularity without being caused to cause it 
and without needing any cause of its causing. 

The acts of a free agent are, therefore, not a fixed 
term in a necessary series. They are not in the line of 
fixed nature. They are not, like a mechanical operation, 
a moving as moved. Inevitable forces do not rule all 
things ; necessity is not master of the universe ; fatalism 
is not lord of God and man. 

From what has been said above it may appear that 
there is some difference between saying that the Will 
on account acis on acGOUni °f a motive, and saying that 
of motive, ij^ Will is governed by the motive. Govern- 
ment, just so far as it goes, implies limitation, control by 
causation, non-existence of power but to a fixation. It 
implies in the Will passivity without proper activity ; that 
the activity is only passivity, caused motion rather than 
free action. No doubt limitative causation (and so irre- 
sponsibility) rules the main part of our nature. But just 
where is the alternative action of Will the limitative 
force approaches but does not touch. The Will freely 
acts on account of the motive but is not governed by it. 



CHAPTEE Till. 

DETERMINATION FROM INDETERMINATION. 

From our definition of freedom of the Will, that it is 
the power of choosing either of several alternatives, it 
will follow that before the putting forth of the given 
indetermin- volition there is a state, during a longer or 
ate state. shorter period, of deliberation, balance, or equi- 
librium. This state may last but an indivisible instant, 
and terminates at the initial point of the volition. The 



Sect. 2.] DETERMINATION FROM ^DETERMINATION. 183 

commencement of the volition is the close of the in de- 
termination. In this case, as in all other cases of cause 
and effect, the effect goes forth, or rather is put forth, in 
a manner not to be explained, from a quiescent cause. 

This state of indetermination of the Will has been 
called indifference, and hence the phrase, liberty of in- 
difference ; fjut as it is the act of volition which termin- 
ates the balance and creates the difference, the state 
previous to the volition may truly be called a of "indiffer- 

GD.C6 " SO 

state of volitional non- difference rather than called. 
indifference. The non-difference is not in the prevo- 
litional faculties, but in the will. But inasmuch as at 
the present day the term indifference is exclusively applied 
to the feelings or prevolitional operations its use is likely 
to mislead. The so-called liberty of indiffer- improperly 

.'.,,., n .,, . . . , at the pres 

ence is the liberty of a will existing in such a ent day. 
state of previous indetermination as that it possesses full 
conscious power to choose either of several ways. 

This non-differentiation of the Will anterior to the 
given action, and while it is quiescent as to the particu- 
lar volition, is perfectly consistent with the abundant 
existence of differentiations in the prevolitional mental ele- 
ments. In the intellect, conscience, emotions, „ 

\ 7 Does not ex- 

desires, there may coexist plenty of inclina- ^nai^e- 
tions, predispositions, tendencies, preponder- dis P° sitions - 
ances, and preferences, either way or both ways. All 
these might exist and fluctuate with terrible energy with- 
out the existence of even the faculty of the Will in the 
soxd. 

This statement of the coexistence of prevolitional pref- 
erences with a non-differentiation in the Will, will solve 
at once much of the necessitarian verbal argumentation 
in which the term "inclination" is made to play an 
ambiguous part. Thus the Princeton Essayist says, 
" For if the Will be in a condition by which it is fitted 
or liable to turn either way, then it cannot be already 
inclined by a preponderating bias in one direction : for 



184 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

this is but saying that it chooses the contrary of its own 
preference." " Inclination," we reply, may be either vo- 
litional or prevolitional. In the latter case it is fully 

consistent, and may be coexistent with a "con- 
Hence neces- ' J 

fade^re^ 1 " dition " of the Will's being able " to turn either 
futed. way." If by "a preponderating bias in one 

direction" is meant what we have elsewhere called a 
permanent state of purpose into which the agent has 
been resolved by a previous volition, then, as has been 
explained, that purpose or "bias" simply constitutes a 
motive, which will come into view when the question of 
change at any time rises before the Will. The change 
of such a " bias " is an ordinary occurrence in the opera- 
tions of the human mind. It is a choosing by the agent 
of " the contrary of its own preferences " previously ex- 
isting. True it is, the Will cannot choose the contrary 
of its own volition ; for a volition proper is an instanta- 
change of neous ac ^, and such choosing the contrary 
"Was." would imply the coexistence of contradictory 
volitions. But the moment the volition has passed, hav- 
ing placed the mind in a state of determinate purpose, 
such purpose, as above said, becomes simply a motive 
against change by the Will, and not a necessitative ex- 
clusion of change. 

The inclusion by Edwards of all our active sensibilities 
under Will betrays him into the conjuring up of imagin- 
ary contradictions, such as (p. 100) "to prefer contrary 
to its own preference, or choose contrary to its own 
choice ;" " to prefer and not to prefer at the same time, 
or to choose contrary to its own present choice." That 
such contrarieties do coexist in the mind we trust has 
been amply and satisfactorily shown. 

In his chapter upon Liberty of Indifference, Edwards 
makes the following points : 1. He assumes that the 
"Indifference" preceding the volition is a self-balanced 
inertness, a dead-lock, a complete blocking of the whole 
being; from it, therefore, he argues that no action can 



Sect. 2.] DETERMINATION FROM INDETERMINATION. 185 

take origin. 2. This indifference must be not partial, 
but total and absolute ; so that no action to ^ 

J Edwards's 

produce volition can co-exist with it. 3. He R ^^ 
assumes the necessity of producing volition by ence -" 
a previous producing aot, which must, by self-contradic- 
tion, be put forth within the stagnant indifference. 
4. The freedom=in difference and the volition must 
coexist ; which is a further contradiction. 

1. Upon the first of these points we remark that the 
Will, or the volitional agent, is not a pow- Undecid d 
erless, indifferent, inert substance, in perfect fo U n n ^* f 
stagnation ; but a full, free, complete and power - 
adequate causal power, in the proper conditions for the 
alternatives before it. It is not a state of powerlessness, 
but the seat of primordial power, the type whence, per- 
haps, our primitive idea of power is obtained. We know 
nothing of power except as the basis and source of 
action. Wherever we see the action, or by experience 
recognize the antecedents of action, unipotent or alterna- 
tive, or by consciousness recognize the sense of the interior 
causal capacity for action, we locate the power. Before 
action that power is in apparent repose. Before the 
flash, at the contact of the powder and spark, there is 
the instant of indifference, but from this indifference the 
action takes its causal origin. Yet in this equilibrial 
instant the powder plus the spark are a Power exists 
full, complete, adequate, unipotent cause of a tion. 
sole effect, just as the agent in his proper equilibrial 
conditions is a full, complete, adequate, alternative 
cause of either of several effects. There is no more inert- 
ness, or powerlessness, or mystery in the one case than 
in the other. The assumptions of Edwards would prove 
that the repose of even physical cause could never 
awake. Cause would forever cease to go forth, the 
universe of things would stand still, and activity would 
forever die out. 

2. To the full existence of equilibrial freedom, it is not 



186 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

necessary, as Edwards claims, that a complete expurga- 
No blank of tion should be made of all preferential, prevo- 

preference 

needed. litional feelings, views, or motivities. It sim- 
ply implies, as we have already shown, that anterior to 
the choice the Will is, in its pr#per conditions, an agent 
or power in an indeterminate state, and that the determ- 
ination or particular volition takes origin from this pre- 
vious state, just as all causational action takes origin 
from a previous inaction — inaction, that is, as to that 
particularity. If there exist previous preferential feel- 
ings, or previous predeterminations or prepossessions, 
these do not destroy the liberty of the ensuing volition. 
They are not contradictory of the "indifference," or 
deliberative equilibrial state of the Will previous to the 
action. They only constitute motive influences in favor 
of some one of the alternatives or other, and these influ- 
ences are simply among the conditions of volitional 
action. And these motive influences do not impair the 
liberty ; they only constitute a probability that the Will 
will act in accordance with them ; yet the higher proba- 
bility may be rejected. They simply increase the num- 
ber of motives. Between acting in accordance or against 
them, there is still a freedom of the Will. 

3. The old sophism that a preceding volition is necessary 
to produce a free volition here recurs. Edwards requires 
that " the Will, while it remains in perfect equilibrium, 
No wm to without preference, determines to change itself, 
wiU * and excite in itself a certain choice or preference." 

The agent, we reply, in view, it may be, of a variety of 
preferences, before it has decided, and is yet " in equilib- 
rium," does (not " determine to change itself," u excite 
itself," etc., but) in full power for either volition, puts 
forth one of the volitions which are in power. The equi- 
librium in the order of nature precedes the volition, the 
indecision precedes the decision, the indetermination 
precedes the determination, just as the quiescence of 
cause precedes the effectuation. The volition then put 



tfect. 2.] DETERMINATION FROM INDETERMINATION. 187 

forth is not a determination, previously, to change itself, 
but is itself a change ; the change and the volition upon 
its object being the same. Nor is the non-differentia- 
tion of Will before volition a stagnant idiocy or uncon- 
cern in regard to the alternatives. Edwards argues 
copiously that such indifference cannot even The deiiber- 
" begin" to act so as to originate volition, is able n to 

begin ac- 

If such " indifference " be indeed a dead impo- tion." 
tent stagnation, such an argument would be conclusive. 
But the case is that of power. It is simply the condition 
of an agent before action in whom resides the element 
of power of or for action. That so-called "indifference" 
is simply the equipotence for action in either of several 
directions. How absurd to say that an agent in whom 
exists the power for action cannot act or "begin" to act ! 
That the Will does in presence of alternatives, and in 
this state of so-called " indifference," or weighing of 
alternatives, possess full power for action, is a matter of 
universal consciousness. 

4. Nor will necessitarianism gain much from this notable 
axiom — " every act of freedom is done in a state of free- 
dom, and not only after such a state." "It will not 
suffice, that the act immediately follows a state of 
liberty; but liberty must continue and exist with the 
act." That is, as Edwards maintains, inasmuch as 
Arminian liberty consists in " indifference," therefore 
choice and indifference==freedom, preference and non- 
preference, volition and non-volition, by the Arminian 
hypothesis, must exist at the same moment ; which is a 
contradiction. "How ridiculous would it be for any- 
body to insist that the soul chooses one thing before the 
other when at the same instant it is perfectly indifferent 
with respect to each." — P. 103. 

Now these things " are very inconsiderately spoken." 
The doctrine qf free Will doubtless requires that the 
volition should spring from a power capable at the point 
of choice of either alternative choice. But it does not 



188 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

require that freedom to an act should exist after the act 
itself exists. Freedom from the act is out of the ques- 
tion after the act has taken place. Freedom in regard 
to the act, or any infinitesimal part of an act, already 
existing, to cause it never to have existed, is not claimed. 
It is not required, as it is impossible, that the deed 
already done, or so far as done, could be rendered not 
done, or the fact be made to be no fact. The com- 
pleted and past act is out of power. But that does not 
disprove that such act is a fact, now and forever, which 
was produced by an alternative Will and in that proper 
sense a free act. Yet although the existent act is no 
longer in power, freedom still remains as the quality of 
the Will; which Will is still the antecedent, whence 
may spring continuous free-volitions. 

The volition by the very definition of freedom is called 
a free volition because it receives existence from an 
alternative cause, namely, the free-agent. The freedom 
lies in the cause, not so properly in the effect. To its 
being a free volition, it is not necessary, by any definition, 
or any view of freedom that such cause be able to render 
it, so far as it exists, not done. It may change it anew, 
but cannot render it never having been done. Yet the 
soul w&sfree in its antecedency / .and is still free, not to 
the destruction of the existent, but to the alternative 
causation of the still non-existent. 

It is not true, therefore, that the freedom to a particu- 
lar act in the order of nature coexists with that act; 
nor does the doctrine of freedom so require. Cause and 
its particular effect cannot coexist. In the order of nature 
the commencement of effect is the cessation of cause. The 
moment an infinitesimal part or point of effect exists, its 
causation infinitesimal point or amount of cause, as cause, 
nSt coexist nas ceased to exist. The object which caused 
may exist, but no longer as ca.use. All cause 
expires in child-birth ; but the fact that the effect has 
once come into existence is indestructible. And so 



Sect. 2. J DETERMINATION FROM INDETERMINATION. 189 

doubtless a free cause in the order of nature, pre- 
cedes its effect ; and as a cause and as a free cause, in 
regard to the particular effect produced, name- p^ causa _ 
ly, the particular infinitesimal part or point of cedes free 
effect which may be produced, it is no longer a act ' 
cause or a free-cause ; and so far as produced, the effect 
is out of power. The freedom to that act lasts so long as 
the causality lasts, and no longer. And so the free-cause 
as such, in regard to that particular effect, is no longer a 
free-cause ; it does not coexist with the effect. And if 
the axiom of Edwards that " every act of freedom is done 
in a state of freedom," means that causality coexists with 
effect, or that the free causation does not precede but co- 
exists with the freely produced effect, it is a sophism and 
not an axiom. 

And yet this does not disprove that the cause in the 
production was free ; nor that it still remains a None the less 
like cause for future free production ; the cause freedom - 
always anteceding the effect of which it is the free pro- 
ducer. 

Surely it is not a strange or abstruse idea that the 
causing of the deed precedes the deed instead of coexist- 
ing with it ; or that the doer could at the point of choice 
choose or not choose ; or that the choice once made, even 
though withdrawn or changed, remains as a fact, forever 
a fact ; or that all this is consistent with the freedom of 
the doer in that choice, or its still permanent freedom for 
all future choices. 

We conclude by calling attention to the fact that the 
argument of Edwards if it be valid proves not Not certainty, 
any mere certainty of the volitional event dif- ty. 
ferent from necessity, but it proves necessity itself. 
That is, he proves not the non-usance but the non-exist- 
ence of any power of different volition or contrary choice. 
Edwards can affirm that his necessity is certainty only 
because his certainty is necessity. 



190 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part H, 



CHAPTEE IX. 

CHOICE BETWEEN EQUAL ALTERNATIVES. 

Alternatives may be before the mind so equally eli- 
gible that, so far as consciousness may be judge, the 
Will decides without motive upon its object. 

In anticipation, however, necessitarians meet these in- 
Three neces- stances by affirming, first, that they cannot be 

sitarian an- . - - . ... 

ticipations. genuine cases because there can be no volition 
without motive; second, volitions without motive can 
possess no moral character; and third, the cases are of 
so trifling a character as to be inconsequential in the ar- 
gument. 

The first of these affirmations, though the most influ- 
ential upon the minds of men, of course takes 
the conclusion for granted, and proves itself 
by itself. The whole of this treatise is our entire reply. 

Second, that motiveless actions can have no moral 
character has been too lightly conceded by the advocates 
of free will. For a person guilty of repeated profanity, 
or theft, or murder, it would be no defense that the 
crime was without motive. Indeed, motiveless crimes 
and sins may be many times altogether aggravated by 
the very fact that they are motiveless. If the slightest 
act of sin is an infinite sin, as Edwards holds, then an 
infinite sin may be committed supposably without a 
motive. 

Third, the minuteness of the action by no means di- 
minishes the importance as a test experiment. The ex- 
periment decides, so far forth as the decision of conscious- 
ness is clear, that volitional cause is different from any 
cause in material dynamics. Natural philosophy knows 
no cause which can act either way in face of an equilib- 
rium. The minutest successful experiment proves the 
whole doctrine of volitional freedom. 



Sect. 2.] CHOICE BETWEEN EQUAL ALTERNATIVES. 191 

The ability of the Will to choose in equilibrial alterna- 
tives establishes the reality of that point of freedom 
which Mr. Locke and others find in the power of voli- 
tional suspension. The Will, say they, often Volitional 
meets alternatives before which it is not neces- sus P ension - 
sitated at the instant to decide, but may hold the mind 
in an indeterminate state ; which is doubtless true. But, 
replies Edwards, in this there can be no freedom; for 
this holding the mind in suspense is an act, and for the 
act there must be the motive. But, we reply, if the Will 
can in any case act by intrinsic power without motive, 
however minute the case, or however strong the proba- 
bilities against it, the reply of Edwards is invalid, and 
there lies a freedom in this power of volitional suspension. 

Each for himself must decide the case. So far as my 
consciousness can decide, after I have been in- The experi . 
duced by motives to engage myself in the ex- ment - 
periment, I make movements for which the nicest ob- 
servations of consciousness can detect no motive. Hav- 
ing purposed to move one of my fingers, I detect no mo- 
tive for the particular one moved. I close both eyes, 
and can open one of them without motive for either. 
Pointing my finger over the center of a chess-board, I 
touch without any individualizing motive a particular 
square. I pronounce names, John, or Thomas, or Samuel, 
without any motive for the priority of either. I perform 
these experiments guarding against all the causes of pref- 
erence suggested by either the Elder or Younger Ed- 
wards, and with a clear result. And so far as this is a clear 
result it is a decisive result ; decisive of the whole ques- 
tion. For if any, the slightest, volition ever took place 
without the impellency of motives, necessitarianism is a 
false system. 

And in our individual practical history how infinitesi- 
mal are the beginnings which involve in the Import . ance 
long run even infinite consequences. How slight SvekSS ™c- 
and often motiveless the acts which give a new tlons ' 



192 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

turn to our career and a new complexion to our destiny. 
Nay, the slightest and most motiveless act may produce 
effects upon the history of nations and change the face 
of the world. 

There are, however, two kinds of equilibrial case. 
One is, as we have already discussed, where the two or 
Two kinds of more sides are equal because equally valueless ; 
acts. the other is where both sides have a value and, 

so far as the prevolitional faculties are concerned, an 
equal value. It is not to be inferred that because the 
motives are balanced and no superior strength stands on 
either side that the importance of the opposite interests is 
therefore infinitely small. On the contrary, the most mo- 
Momentous mentous value may belong to each. For aught 
balances. we k now ^he opposite motives before the 
mind of Eve may have been subjectively equilibrial, and 
thus the moral destiny of the entire race may have been 
decided by a volitional act which was by cancellation 
without a motive. Cesar paused at the Rubicon ; motives 
of stupendous magnitude held the scales even ; perhaps 
it was Will that decided. So God is conceived as 
deciding between two undifferenced points of space by 
Will. 

A theory of equilibrial freedom, called " liberty of in- 
King , s difference," is propounded by Archbishop King 

theory. w ith much ability and at full extent in his 
" Origin of Evil." It limits freedom to that class of vo- 
litions which the mind puts forth, without any prepon- 
derating motive on either side ; but maintains that con- 
sequent upon the volition the thing chosen becomes 
agreeable, and is fully and permanently accepted because 
it is chosen. While in a large class of cases the desires 
and appetites precede, induce, and determine the Will, 
in other cases the Will precedes, and the fixing of the 
appetencies upon it follows. Not only are things chosen 
because they are first agreeable, but things are often 
agreeable because they are previously chosen. And, 



Sect. 2.] CHOICE BETWEEN EQUAL ALTERNATIVES. 193 

thus, a choice without any previous motive, and so per- 
fectly free, creates a permanent motivity in the thing 
chosen, whereby the consistency of the man is main- 
tained, and he becomes a free creator of agreeableness in 
objects and happiness to himself. 

There are some inconsistencies and crudeness, both of 
thought and expression, in the details of the archbishop's 
system. 

He made but an incomplete approximation to an ac- 
curate expression of the true view when he said that 
" things are loved because they are chosen." Doubtless 
this is sometimes, though not uniformly, the truth. But 
the real fact ordinarily is that the volition determines the 
mental position. It settles the question of preference 
between alternatives, dismisses the counter motives from 
view, and closes the debate. Opposing inclinations, de- 
sires, inducements, and feelings of obligation disappear, 
and that preference to which the Will gives predomi- 
nance becomes sole and settled master. The Will passes 
the mind on to new objects and the discussion Adherence 
of new alternatives. Meanwhile it adds a new choice. 
and irrevocable fact to the history ; perhaps contracts a 
new responsibility ; and often gives a new change to the 
entire destiny. Whether the choice has been for a 
higher or a lower motive, in favor of its moral interests 
or of its sensual propensities, a self-commitment may 
have been made which will lead to incalculable results. 

The appetencies and affections usually do form around 
even the obiect chosen at first with little or no Appeten- 

*-. , . n . n cies con- 

motive; and there is no want of verifications firming it. 
of the maxim that " things are loved because they have 
been chosen." 

13 



194 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 



CHAPTEE X. 

EQUALITY OF DIVINE MOTIVES. 

Necessitarians are obliged by the nature of their 
argument to apply the assertions of necessity to mind as 
mind, to Will as Will, to cause as cause, whether finite 
or infinite. This very boldness enables us to adduce an 
instance of equilibrial choice of a character so pure and 
perfect as to give it the nature of a demonstration. 

Pure infinite space is everywhere perfectly and abso- 
Argument lutely alike. Before creation of any body or 
space. substance, there is nothing in one where to 

afford any motive for preference over everywhere or any- 
where else. It is impossible, then, for a motive to be 
offered here for the placing a world or a universe rather 
than elsewhere. No place or point can therefore be 
selected, and no universe can be created, because it can- 
not be located. The same argument applied to the abso- 
lute similarity of all points of time would prove the 
impossibility that the world could be created ever. 

This argument assumes the doctrine of Sir Isaac New- 
ton, that the universe is finite. Leibnitz denied this 
upon grounds now altogether exploded, though he ad- 
mitted the possibility or power in God to create a finite 
universe. Dr. Clarke conclusively replied that the very 
admission that God could create a finite universe is full 
concession that the universe might be established in par- 
ticular space without particular motive. 

In his reply to the arguments of Samuel Clarke and 
others in behalf of the freedom of the Divine Will, drawn 
from the equality of different spaces, times, and objects, 
Edwards maintains that there is a contradiction in the 
very terms ; for things between which there is no differ- 
ence, whether spaces, times, or objects, are absolutely 
the same ; so that to speak of a choice between them is 



Sect. 2. J EQUALITY OF DIVINE MOTIVES. 195 

absurd. He thereupon institutes an elaborate argument 
m which he makes the following points : 

I. He confounds resemblance with identity ; he con- 
founds difference and sameness in point of resemblance 
with difference and sameness in point of identity. He 
invalidates all essential self-identity or individualization 
in any given unit. 

II. He reduces infinite time and space to mere con- 
ditions of body. 

HI. He confounds the abstract qualities of bodies with 
the bodies themselves and their individual realities. 

IV. He supposes a false analogy between body and 
sound. 

To all these we offer what we trust are satisfactory 
replies : 

I. There is one sort of difference between objects in 
respect of resemblance, and another sort of difference in 
respect to intrinsic identity ; and these are two different 
senses of the word difference, which, unless we would 
confound things by words, .must be kept separate and 
distinct. The word same also is still more am- Difference 
biguous. We call individuals of the same class ness. 
or species the same; which is a specific sameness, as, 
e. g., all human nature is the same. We call a suc- 
cessional aggregate, which is continually changing its 
constituents, the same; as a river whose waves are per- 
petually different is the same river; or the human body, 
though its particles are perpetually substituted ; and this 
is a historical sameness. Two individuals, more or less 
alike, we call the same; and the resembling qualities of 
two bodies we call the same, which is the sameness of 
resemblance. But all these are secondary or transferred 
meanings. The strict essential meaning of sameness, or 
identity of an individual, is its essential separate self- 
hood, by which it is not and cannot be identical with 
any other thing, but must be itself and nothing else. 



196 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

Though the word same or sameness is applied to both, 
yet resemblance and identity are essentially two very dif- 
ferent things. Increase of resemblance is no approxima- 
tion to identity. Things most perfectly like are no more 
identical than things most perfectly unlike. Suppose I 
have in my right hand an ivory ball, and in my left an 
iron cube ; it is at once seen that the two have little re- 
semblance and no identity. Suppose by power of will I 
could transform the iron cube to an iron ball of precisely 
similar size and roundness with the ivory. The two are 
no nearer identity than before, though far less different 
in point of resemblance. Increase of resemblance, diminu- 
tion of difference in point of resemblance, then, is no ap- 
perfect re- proximation to identity. Let a second dictum 
not identity, of Will transmute the iron ball into ivory. 
The resemblance, then, becomes absolutely perfect ; the 
non-identity remains just as absolutely perfect. No 
change of position could affect their respective identities. 
If my hands should mutually exchange them, their recip- 
rocal position would be changed, but not their intrinsic 
identity. Each hand has a different ball in possession 
from what it had before ; different in identity, but abso- 
lutely alike in resemblance ; and just as different in iden- 
tity as if there were no likeness in resemblance. Let 
there be a million such ivory balls, perfectly like, flung 
in perfect disorder through the sky, and of not one of 
them would the identity be changed. Unless we allow 
the confusion, which doubtless would reign in our per- 
ceptions at the sight, to disturb our minds, we shall see 
that although the whole million have no difference in 
point of resemblance, yet their individual identities are 
just as distinct and changeless as if there were no resem- 
blance at all. 

When Edwards asks, therefore, of two different bodies 
perfectly alike, " If they are absolutely without difference, 
then how are they different objects of choice ?" the mere 
play upon words becomes transparent. They are " with- 



Sect. 2.] EQUALITY OF DIVINE MOTIVES. 197 

out difference " of resemblance ; they are with difference 
in identity. They are perfectly alike, they are Edwards . s 
absolutely non-identical. No exchanges, nor <i mbbles - 
legerdemain, nor confusions of our perception of them, 
can ever render them not different in identity. And 
when Edwards adds, " If there be absolutely no differ- 
ence in any respect," (we do not say there is " no differ- 
ence in any respect ;" we say only there is no difference 
in the one respect of resemblance,) " then there is no 
variety or distinction;" we reply, certainly there is both 
variety and distinction in point of identity. And further, 
" If there be no variety among proposed objects of choice, 
then there is no opportunity for variety of choice or dif- 
ference of determination." There is, we reply, a variety 
of objects of choice, namely, a variety of intrinsic, in ex- 
changeable identities, which perfectly resemble. And it 
is the absence of difference of resemblance between the 
different objects which renders it an exact case of choice 
for one or other without specialty of motive. 

And, again, when Edwards gravely tells us, "Two 
different bodies are not different or distinct in any other 
respects than those wherein they differ ; they are two in 
no other respects than those wherein there is a differ- 
ence," the remark is neither profound nor pertinent. 
We grant that bodies are different in just those respects 
in which they are different, for that which is, is. But 
that does not show that bodies may not be without dif- 
ference in point of resemblance and yet with absolute 
difference in point of identity. " If they are perfectly 
alike in themselves, then" — then what ? Then they com- 
pletely resemble in themselves, but are none the more 
identical with each other in themselves. " For it is dif- 
ference only that constitutes distinction." A truism; 
difference in resemblance constitutes one distinction ; dif- 
ference in identity another. 

The freedomist proposes the case: Let there be two 
different objects perfectly alike, and the choice of either 



198 NECESSITARIAN" ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

verbal argu- must ^ e without motive. For the necessitarian 
ment. to Ye ^\j jf they are perfectly like and there is 

no difference, then there is no variety of objects, and so 
no two or more alternatives to choose from, and there- 
fore the choice is the same, is no reasoning at all. It is 
play upon words. 

II. The freedomist again argues that all space being 
perfectly similar, though with an infinite variety of iden- 
tity, there can be no motive for the selection of one point 
or portion of space for a creation than another, and hence 
neither choice nor creation. 

In reply, Edwards denies the existence, beyond the 
limits of creation, of space, of infinite length, breadth, 
Measurable an( ^- depth, truly and properly distinguished 
pure space. j nto <jiff eren t measurable parts. He denies at 
some length the division of immensity into " miles and 
leagues" and "sorts of measures." The absurdity of 
measuring immensity by miles and the absurdity of 
measuring eternity by years he thinks to be equal. 

In reply we might ask, Would not an infinite number 
of years be eternity? If so, then eternity can be con- 
ceived divisibly, as an infinite number of years, 
just as well as undividedly, as an endless time. 
An infinite number of years would be endless time ; end- 
less time would amount to an infinite number of years. 
If an infinite number of years and eternity be not equal 
and one thing, which is the longer and which the 
shorter ? 

Space is affirmed by the human reason as being extern- 
al to the self, and as that in which all body must neces- 
Anaiysis of sar % be. ^ i s ne ^ necessarily to be ; for if 
space. m thought you abstract from it all body, space 

is still left ; and if you attempt to abstract space, space 
will not undergo abstraction, but remains. Space is con- 
ceived as infinitely extended. For you can in thought 
fill it with infinite body ; it will then no longer be void 
space, but occupied space. The extension of the space 



dect. 2.] EQUALITY OF DIVINE MOTIVES. 199 

is thereby measured by the extension of the body, and 
proved to be infinite. If the body then be removed, 
there then remains an infinitely extended vacuity, an infi- 
nitely extended capacity, from which all body, substance, 
or thing, is absent. Space is, but space can scarcely 
be said to exist ; it is reality, and yet it is the boundless 
absence of all substance, an infinitely extended nonentity. 
And because it is nonentity, it is vacuity, and receptive 
capacity for something. 

We do indeed feel in our own efforts at thought the 
need of some regulative object from which to Needofregu- 
calculate directions and distances, in order to ject. 
determine any particular place in infinite space. When 
we attempt to identify a point in infinitely pure space, 
the impression is apt to arise that it is all " the same ;" 
and we forget ourselves and reduce infinite space to a 
sole point, annihilating, by mental withdrawment, all 
other space. We forget that this "sameness" is such 
only in point of perfect resemblance, and that our very 
phrase " immensity of space " is an assertion of boundless 
variety in point of identity and reality. Were infinite 
space conceived as filled with an infinite system of stars, 
then infinite space would be commensurated with an 
infinite orrery — the infinite by the infinite. Each star 
would be in its own place and not in another. If, then, 
every star but one be blotted out and all other space be 
left pure, that other pure space still exists ; and all the 
points once occupied, though unmarked and pure of all 
trace, as if no substance had ever been there, still exist 
as truly as if the orbs were still there. Blot out that 
last star, and then, though there is nothing left but 
pure void infinite space, yet its infinitely extended 
capacity remains, and all the places and points once 
occupied remain. But those places and Pointg - m ^ 
points were not created or intrinsically dif- fimty * 
ferentiated by the orbs. All we have gained from 
them is aid to our thought. The places and points 



200 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

in the infinite sameness of resemblance but variety 
of reality, of immensity of space, are conceivable dif- 
ferent places and points of capacity for occupancy by 
substance. One place in infinite pure space is not 
another place; one point is not another point. Immens- 
ity of space is an infinity of singly measurable places, 
which, if occupied, immensity of space is filled by 
equal immensity of occupancy. 

We could not in that case speak, in Edwards's phrase, 
of " milesquares of Deity." But as a cubic mile of body 
can fill and measure a mile square of space, so by men- 
tal withdrawal of the body we should have a cubic mile 
of space remaining. 

If all this is true, then anterior to all creation there 
would be in infinite space an infinite variety of determ- 
inable spaces, either of which could be occupied by 
body, but no one of which presents any difference from 
No refera- an y otner > rendering it preferable for the occu- 
ence d of er ' pancy of any particular body. And if no one 
points - could be selected by the placer's Will without 
some superior eligibility over all others, then the Will 
would be held in immovable equilibrium, and the occu- 
pancy of any point be infinitely impossible. We there- 
fore do know "what we mean if we say the world 
might have been differently placed from what it is in 
the broad expanse of infinity." — Edwards on the Will, 
p. 338. 

The above exposition of space will facilitate the 
true view of time. We do not, indeed, know what Ed- 
wards means by saying that eternity, the " eternity of 
Points of God's existence," for instance, is his "posses- 
time sion of the whole of his unlimited life, together 
and at onceP We can no more conceive how eternity 
can be condensed to an instant than how immensity can 
be condensed to a point. If time, as Professor Hickok 
remarks, presents itself to all minds as a river flowing 
equally from an infinitely distant source, creation is 



Sect. 2.] EQUALITY OF DIVINE MOTIVES. 201 

necessarily conceivable as fixable at a point higher or 
higher up the stream. The world may be conceived as 
created at sixty centuries ago ; or it may, if geology can 
ascertain a precise chronometry, be at sixty billions or 
octillions of centuries ago ; or, transcending all Withoutpref . 
point, matter may be held eternal. All re- erableness - 
quired by the freedomist is the conception that of the 
beginningless stream there are higher or higher points 
really conceivable, between which, as time is ever alike, 
there must be a selection without a determining mo- 
tive. 

HI. Having exhausted his logical double-entendres on 
the words different and same, as applied to things, Ed- 
wards expends a few in application to the SameneS8 of 
qualities of things. Of two perfectly similar <i ualities - 
particles or atoms he tells us, " The figure is the same, 
the measure is the same, the solidity and resistance are 
the same, and everything the same but only the place." 
We may here, by the way, ask why, by Edwards's 
reasoning, is not " the place" "the same ?" In that, as 
in every respect specified, the sameness is merely same- 
ness of resemblance ; and surely one space is as much 
another space as one quality is another quality. The 
so-called sameness of qualities in different bodies is 
what we have above defined as specific sameness, namely, 
that resemblance in the qualities of different objects 
by which we are able to classify them into species. 
One body's quality, however like, is no more identical 
with another body's quality than one man's headache, 
however similar, is identical with another man's head- 
ache. No absolute resemblance of qualities in two dif- 
ferent bodies — much less of the substratal bodies them- 
selves — even approximates to an identity. As the bodies 
are for their resemblance none the more identical, so the 
qualities are for their resemblance none the more iden- 
tical than if they had been a contrary sort of qualities. 

Edwards puts the case : " Supposing that God in the 



202 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

why that beginning had created but one perfectly solid 
sphere? sphere in a certain place, and it should be 
inquired, Why God created that individual sphere in that 
place at that time ? and why did he not create another 
sphere perfectly like it, but numerically different, in the 
same place, at the same time?" we reply that to 
answer these " whys " is to assign a motive for creating 
the particular sphere, which is the very thing, we argue, 
cannot be assigned. But if the question be whether God 
could have created a perfectly similar other sphere 
whether a instead, or either one of an infinity of similar 

different - . . n 

similar? other spheres instead, we answer promptly, 
Yes. And not one of those spheres will be another any 
more than if they all were of different shapes, colors, 
and substances. 

IV. Edwards next argues that it would be just as 
Different like ra ti° na l to ask why a given sound is not by the 

sounds. Almighty supplanted by another sound pre- 
cisely similar. And he argues that as a perfectly simi- 
lar sound substituted would be 'the same sound, so a 
perfectly similar body substituted would be the same 
body. 

The cases, we reply, are not analogous. It is by the 
Not anaio- circumstances in the case that the self-sameness 

gous. f ^e sound is constituted. It is of the same- 

ness of time, place, material air, impulse, atmospheric 
motion, sensation, and quality that the sound is what it 
is. Change either of these and the sound is no longer 
the same. These being the same the sound could not in 
the nature of things be replaced with another sound pre- 
cisely similar by any power, even omnipotence. 

Self-same- ■»•■»/» i -i i • * • t • 

ness consist- ft 1S f these that the intrinsic nature and m- 

ing in cir- 
cumstances, dividualization of the sound is made up ; and 

the self-sameness of these is the self-sameness of the 

sound, which, therefore, cannot be exchanged with or 

replaced by another. 

Dr. Clarke's conclusions, then, remain untouched by 



Sect. 2.] USELESS MODIFICATIONS OF NECESSITY. 203 

the logic of Edwards. All space is perfectly alike ; all 
spaces are different identities. Their different identity 
creates a plurality of objects of choice; their perfect 
likeness excludes any superiority of motive. A particu- 
lar space, therefore, cannot, according to necessity, be 
selected for creation, and creation is therefore impossible. 



CHAPTEE XL 

USELESS MODIFICATIONS OF NECESSITY. 

Necessitation, so far forth as it exists, and Responsi- 
bility, are incompatible. No matter as to this incompati- 
bility what 1. The Source, 2. The Mode, 3. The Point 
or part of our being necessitated, or 4. The Foureva . 
Result. Necessity (not self-superinduced) and sions * 
responsibility cannot cover the same ground. They can- 
not coexist ; but just so far as one exists it excludes the 
other. This essential incompatibility is in the nature of 
things unchangeable and indestructible by any power, 
even Omnipotence. 

1. The Source. Whether the source or cause of this 
necessitation be infinite or finite, God or second causes, 
a physical or an inalternative motive force, the non- 
freedom is the same. A finite cause excludes the con- 
trary power, and an infinite cause can do no more than 
exclude it.* By either cause there is equally only the 
freedom of the clock-hammer, to but not from. If one 
non-freedom excludes responsibility so does the other. 

2. The Mode. Whether by creation, by secondary 
causation, by birth, by in-formation, or by insertion, ne- 
cessitation is equally exclusive of freedom, and so of 
responsibility. A necessity formed within me, or put 

* See p. 42. 



204 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

into me, is no more a non-freedom than a necessity im- 
posed upon or intrinsic in my nature. 

3. The Point. Whether the point or part of my be- 
ing upon which the necessitation is imposed be mind or 
body, intellect, sensation, or Will, the necessitated action 
of that part or faculty — so necessitated as to be inalterna- 
tive to the agent — is irresponsible. A necessitation upon 
Will to volitionate, upon the muscle to act, upon the in- 
tellect to perceive, are alike irresponsible. It is absurd 
to say that a volition is responsible purely because it is a 
volition and not something else. 

4. The Result. Whether the result necessitated to 
exist be a volition, a nature, a state, a condition, or an 
action of body or mind, it is in either case equally unfree 
and irresponsible. 

Dr. Emmons heroically maintained that we are free 
and responsible even though our evil volition were 
These eva- created and put into us. Dr. Shedd rejects 

sions equal- . _ _. . . . . 

ly useless, that absurdity, but maintains that we are re- 
sponsible, even though our sin be a necessitated nature. 
Dr. Pond rejects our responsibility for a nature, and 
boasts that he places our responsibility not in nature but in 
action. Professor Lyall abjures necessity from causation, 
but places responsibility in intrinsic spontaneous neces- 
sity of Will to obey motive.* Dr. N". W. Taylor rejected 
all these and placed responsibility in a power of willing 
either way, which, meanwhile, is secured by a Law of 
Invariablility, or intrinsic spontaneity, to be exerted in 
but one sole way.f All these distinctions are foreclosed 
by Edwards, who maintains that it matters not to re- 
sponsibility how we come by our volitions. With Ed- 
wards we agree that it matters not how we come by our 
necessitated volitions, — or our necessitated anything else ; 
all alike and equally are irresponsible. Not one of this 
list has any ground of boast over venerable Dr. Emmons. 
That is, the maintainer of responsibility for volition cre- 
* See p. 212. t See p. 220. 



Sect. 2.] USELESS MODIFICATIONS OF NECESSITY. 205 

ated within us, is no more absurd nor any less justifiable 
than the maintainer of responsibility for a necessitated 
nature ; or for a necessitated action ; or for a spontaneous 
necessity to obey the given antecedent without existing 
counter power; or for a spontaneous necessity to obey 
such antecedent by an invariable non-usance of an exist- 
ing counter power. 

I. Dr. Shedd (Discourses and Essays, pp. 219-271) 
holds, 1. Sin is not so much an act as a "nature" 
or a "state," and as such is guilty and damnable. 
2. This nature is a "product," namely, a product of 
the human Will ; and depravity lies properly 
"in the Will;" and consists in the Will's 
necessitated state of everflowing evil volitions. 3. The 
Will is not the "mere volitionary faculty;" but is 
inclusive of the affections, emotions, intellections, fused 
into a necessitated mass ; the whole man himself viewed 
as necessitatively determined in unity to a given and 
fixed direction. 4. In all this the Will is self-determ- 
ined; but only as all unipotent cause determ- In what 
ines itself in a solely possible direction; that sense * 
is, the self-determination is a necessary one. But in this 
most fatalistic view of stereotyped depraved Will, ever 
by necessity tending to evil, Dr. Shedd sees something 
highly consistent with responsibility. At least, it is not 
so bad as an inserted or omnipotently deposited de- 
pravity. It is free, (in the sense that necessitated choice 
or power of choice is freedom ;) self-determined, (in the 
sense that every material cause is self-determined ;) origi- 
nating in Will, (in the sense that the Will is the amalgam 
of all the necessitated faculties of the mind,) and is not 
half so bad as an omnipotently interpolated depraved 
nature.* " Were this nature created and put into man, 

* There is no necessitarian writer, we think, who more unrestrain- 
edly appropriates a freedomistic nomenclature under a special and 
"private interpretation" to express necessitarian dogmas than Dr. 
Shedd. (See also his History of Christian Doctrine, pp. 15, 16, etc.) 
The reason doubtless is, that he unites a freedomistic heart with a 



206 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

as an intellectual nature or as a particular temperament 
is put into him by the Creator of all things, it would not 
be a responsible and guilty nature, nor would man be a 
child of wrath. But it does not thus originate." 

But if this "nature," intrinsic and necessitated upon 
the agent by birth, is any more responsible than inserted 
or in-created "nature," what is the ground for such 
greater responsibility? ISTot certainly a greater free- 
dom ; for in both cases the freedom is equally the me- 
chanical freedom to and not from the " nature," whether 
of the " volitionary faculty " or of the whole man determ- 
ined in unity. Nor, as above premised, matters it at all - 
whether the cause of a necessitation be creation, inser- 
tion, or birth ; nor what the result ; whether an act or a 
"nature," or an act and nature identified, the respons- 
ibility is excluded by necessitation. 

II. Dr. Pond, in his representative exhibit of Hopkins 
ianism, (Bib. Sac, vol. xix, p. 636,) tells us that Ed- 
wards taught — "in opposition to Arminians, Pelagians, 
and infidels" — that liberty of Will consists in "mere- 
ly choice or the power of choice." In other words, 
Freedom President Edwards maintained that "freedom 
action. is an essential property of Will" just as strik- 
ing is an essential property of a clock. And he specially 
boasts that his system deposits freedom and responsibil- 
ity not in state, nature, or condition, but in "action." 
And similarly Dr. Hitchcock asks, (Bib. Sac, July, 1863,) 
" So long as they act voluntarily do they not act freely ?" 
Freedom and the power of choice are by this identical. 
A volition however necessitated is free and responsible 
just because it is a volition and not something else. We 
remark : 

fatalistic head, intuitions tending to the right hampered by a falsifying 
logic. Why is it that necessitarians so struggle to clothe their dogmas 
in our terms, while we so struggle to clear our phraseology from all 
affinity or resemblance to their dogmas ? These verbal appropriations 
of theirs (see p. 77) are the tribute paid by fatalism to freedom; just 
as hypocrisy is said to be the compliment which virtue pays to vice. 



Sect. 2.] USELESS MODIFICATIONS OF NECESSITY. 207 

1. This definition voids the word freedom as applied to 
Will of sense or meaning.* If volition, choice, or the 
power of choice is liberty, then there is no such voids free- 
thing as free choice, for that would be free free- meaning. 
dom ; nor for the same reason any free power of choice, 
or power of free choice. There can be no free volition 
nor freedom of volition. You have said the whole when 
you have said volition ; and the word free prefixed to it 
is otiose, superfluous, and a mere sound and no word. 
A free volition is a volitional volition. A free volition 
is as absurd a phrase as material matter. All you can 
say then is, that over and above the being a volition or 
the power of a volition there is no freedom. The word 
free adds no idea, expresses no individual thought, ele- 
ment, or perceptible quality in the volition. Free voli- 
tion is just as correct as zero volition. 

And so there is no sense in the word free as applied 
to Will. Will is the faculty of volition ; free will is noth- 
ing more. You have neither added any idea by the 
epithet free, nor particularized an individual idea in the 
Will. Thought can individualize no point, phase, or 
property in the subject answering to the term. Abolish 
the word and no meaning is lost. Predicate or affirm 
freedom of the Will and you have predicated nothing. 
You have merely said, Will is Will. To all Dr. Pond's 
statements, Fletcher, eighty years ago, furnished a con- 
cise but most ample reply : " It is not barely the having a 
Will, but the having free Will, which constitutes us 
accountable, judicable, punishable." 

2. Freedom, say these theologians, consists in the power 
of willing. Freedom from what ? we ask. For freedom 
is a relative term, implying exemption from something. 
It can only be freedom from its opposite, that is, free- 
dom from not willing. But in that same method sensa- 
tion is free — free from not-sensation. ■ Everything is free 
from its own opposite. And so this definition of voli- 

* See p. 35. 



208 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

tional freedom makes the Will or the volition just as 
free as a mathematical figure. If necessitated volition is 
free why not necessitated perception or necessitated 
elock-striking ? 

Why is action, any more a freedom than inaction? 
There is often a delightful freedom in repose ; in exemp- 
tion from the necessity of action. The slumberer after 
fatigue delights to be free from disturbance. The ocean 
enjoys a tranquil freedom from storms. And we see not 
why the exemption of the soul from all choice might not 
just as well be called freedom as the existence of choice. 
The clock without a hammer, a stagnant marsh, a block 
of granite are all free. Each state is exemption from a 
reverse state. 

3. But Dr. Pond considers it (what is here our main 
point) a great merit in his system to locate responsibility 
Necessitated in action, exercise, volition, however necessi- 
state. tated; and not in state, being, or nature. 

But we reply, as above premised, that under necessita- 
tion it matters not whether it be state, condition, action, 
or inaction ; responsibility is equally incompatible. 

Would any sensible man give a flip of a copper for 
choice between damnation for necessary action and dam- 
nation for necessitated being ? Is a necessitated motion 
any more responsible than a necessitated quietude ? Mo- 
tion or action is simply change in space or time. Is neces- 
sitated change any more guilty than necessitated same- 
ness ? Necessitated motion is, in fact, necessitated be- 
ing; being necessitated to exist in different successive 
spaces. But why is necessitated being in different suc- 
cessive spaces any more responsible than necessitated 
being in the same space through successive time ? God 
can $s well necessitate me to be a certain thing, and then 
damn me for it, as necessitate me to do a certain thing 
and damn me for it. For herein doing is being ; for 
necessitated doing is nothing but necessitated changing 
states of necessitated being. Justice can just as readily 



Sect. 2.] USELESS MODIFICATIONS OF NECESSITY. 209 

hold me condemned for a necessary essence as for a 
necessary quality; and for a necessary quality as for a 
necessary operation: for a necessary operation is a 
property, and a property is but the essence manifest. 
Yonder metallic shrub, shaped by the cunning hand of 
modern art, standing with its stately stalk, lifts aloft a 
little wilderness of foliage and vines, most light and airy 
to the eye ; but those clustering festoons and the rigid 
stalk are, alas! alike — cast-iron! So the stalk of a ne- 
cessitated nature, and the wildesi-^yreathings of necessi- 
tated action, are alike cast-iron — irresponsibly fatalistic. 
The actions and the being are one inseparable piece, one 
being, one nature. And this doing-being is created by 
God ; for it is necessitated by him into existence, and to 
necessitate into existence is to create. 

We could as reasonably be held retributively responsi- 
ble for a necessitated shape of our person as for a neces- 
sitated shaping of our actions or motions. Neither re . 
One is but a necessitated moulding of our body s P° nsible - 
in space, the other is the necessitated moulding of our 
being in space and time. 

Dr. Pond says that an African incurs no " guilt " " for 
the color of his skin," because it is not " action." But 
the shedding necessitated colored rays from his Radiations 
cuticle is, we reply, as truly " action " as the turns, 
shedding necessitated evil volitions from his Will. His 
cuticular pigment can just as easily radiate a white as 
his volitional faculty can volitionate a good. An autom- 
aton may just as well be held guilty for being wooden as 
for projecting his arm in a blow when the spring is 
touched ; that is, as well for a necessitated nature as for 
a necessitated action. And so when another writer* 
tells us, by way of justifying damnation for a thing de- 
creed in us, that " it is decreed that we be per- Decreed to 

be volun- 

fectly voluntary " in it ; decreed " that we shall tary. 
act of our own accord ;" neither that " voluntary " nor 

* Dr. Nehemiah Adams. Evenings with the Doctrines. 
14 



210 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

that " accord " is any more responsible than a decreed 
wart on the face, or a foreordained and secured black 
luster beaming from the skin. Is a previously decreed 
volition any more responsible than a previously decreed 
intellection or muscular spasmodic motion ? If God de- 
crees my necessary damnation he may as well secure it 
through a hempen cord, an electric shock, a muscular 
movement, or any other necessary thing, medium, or oper- 
ation as a necessary volition. God may as well secure 
my damnation without anything voluntary as secure it 
by securing the voluntary. Securing my volition in 
order that he may secure my voluntary sin and conse- 
quent damnation is about the poorest piece of sneaking 
despotism that one could attribute to an omnipotent 
Evil. 

. III. The same point that volition=freedom, and that 
necessitated volition is responsible because it is volition 
and not something else, is thus put by another writer. 

1. "There can be no necessity in volition. It is the 
very opposite of necessity. It is liberty itself. Because 
"volition is volition has a determinate cause which makes 

liberty." ft what it is, this does not alter the case. If 
the cause be a free agent, and the kind of volition be de- 
termined by the unconstrained inclinations of the heart, 
the freedom of our actions is no how affected by this 
certain connection between volitions and their cause." 
So says the Princeton Essayist, (p. 277.) And yet this 
writer, who calls volition the very opposite of necessity, 
Yet volition a ^ so ca ^ s tne volition an " effect " of a certain 
"an effect!" " cause " f w hich it cannot but be the result, 
unless he admits, contrary to his own doctrine, that a 
cause can fail of its sole effect. But if the volition can- 
not but be the solely inalternative effect of the existing 
cause, how is it other than necessary ? How can it be 
" the opposite of necessity ?" 

2. This writer, who talks of a mere " certain connec- 
tion between volitions and their cause," denies the power 



Sect. 2.] USELESS MODIFICATIONS OF NECESSITY. 211 

in Will to will any otherwise than as we please. That is, 
as he explains it, the volition has no power to be otherwise 
than as the antecedent inclination or mental And no 

^ , . , , . counter 

state, bo that by his own express statements power. 
it is not a mere certain but an absolutely necessary con- 
nection. But that antecedent inclination cannot but be 
the effect of antecedent causation. The agent comes by 
birth or creation into existence, and has a first caused 
inclination which causes other mental states ; the first 
volition is the effect of the antecedent inclination ; and 
so is the second of its antecedent inclination ; and so all 
the succeeding volitions ; and thus each volition of his 
entire existence lies as a term of a necessary series of 
causes and effects, all equally certain and equally neces- 
sary. If an external physical object strike the surface of 
the body a sensation is a necessary result ; of that sen- 
sation an inclination; of that inclination the volition; 
of that volition the external act. If the sensation be the 
necessary result of the corporeal stroke, and the inclina- 
tion the necessary result of the sensation, is not the vo- 
lition the equally necessary result of the inclination, just 
as the external act is the necessary result of the volition? 
For why is the sensation the necessary effect of the 
stroke but because there exists no adequate power in 
the terms of the series for that result to be otherwise ? 
But the writer affirms an equal non-existence of power 
in the case for other volition. There must, therefore, be 
in the volition an equal necessity. So that the stroke, 
the sensation, the inclination, the volition, and Hence, a 
the external act are the five links of an ado- cessity. 
mantine chain of necessity. What sense is there, then, 
in arbitrarily interpolating the effeminate word certain 
between either two of the links ? The volition is just as 
necessary and just as certain as every other link of the 
causational chain. What sense, then, in his telling us 
that u there can be no necessity in volition ?" All the 
links are just as necessary as the impulsions of a row of 



212 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

elastic balls, or any other chain of mechanical effects 
whatever. 

3. But he tells us next that the volition "is liberty 
itself." Then, we reply, it can have no liberty ; for lib- 
erty cannot have liberty. But if liberty consists in the 
volition itself, then it does not consist in being the oppo- 
site of necessity, for even a necessary volition is a vo- 
Libertyisnot liti° n 5 an( l is therefore liberty. The freedom, 
free * then, is not freedom from necessity, but free- 

dom from not being a volition. And that notable free- 
dom belongs to every block, clock, or everything which 
happens to be itself and nothing else. 

IV. No truer responsibility can be found in a neces- 
sity professedly divorced from cause and made intrinsic 
intrinsic ne- and spontaneous in the agent himself. This 
spontaneity, view appears in the following extract from a 
work entitled, " Intellect, the Emotions, and the Moral 
Nature. By Rev. William Lyall, Free College, Halifax, 
Nova Scotia." The work is published in Edinburgh, and 
enthusiastically indorsed at full length by the Princeton 
Review, edited by Dr. Hodge, and by the British and 
Foreign Evangelical Quarterly, edited by Dr. Cun- 
ningham. 

" Is it causation where the will follows upon desire ? 
It is here, we think, that the whole stress of the question 
regarding the freedom of the Will lies. It does not 
seem causation in the same sense between the strongest 
emotion, or the prevailing desire, and Will, as between 
a judgment and an emotion, or an emotion the effect of 
a conception or judgment." . . . " The Will follows rea- 
sons, inducements, but it is not causedP . . . "Even 
with the strongest motive that could operate, to obey 
that motive is to be free, it is to will, and that is free- 
dom. The will does not determine itself; it may be 
allowed even that it is determined by motive ; but still, 
to will is to be free, or it is to act ; and if we attend to 
the idea implied in action, we have the essence of free- 



Sect. 2.] USELESS MODIFICATIONS OF NECESSITY. 213 

dc*m. What other freedom could be desired? The 
Will does not control motives ; it does not even choose 
between motives; it follows or obeys a motive, a motive 
prevailing at the time — the strongest motive, as appre- 
hended; but in doing so it wills, and that is activity, 
freedom. Freedom is freedom to obey motive — for the 
Will to obey motive, or to decide in obedience to mo- 
tive. In that consists essential freedom." . . . " Will is 
far from the nature of a mere effect." ... "It is an 
effect so far as it is under influence, but it acts under 
that influence by an activity of its own, derived from 
nothing without itself." 

The obedience of Will to motive as here described is 
obedience by intrinsic necessity. It is intrinsic because 
it inheres in all Will as Will, belonging to its Intrinsic ne . 
nature. There is no possible freedom consist- cessity - 
ing in a power of disobedience to highest motive. Obedi- 
ence is freedom ; and there is no other freedom. It is, 
therefore, what must be ; an inherent intrinsic necessity, 
or spontaneity. 

But it matters not to responsibility whether necessity 
is from a specific antecedent cause, or is thus _ 

r 7 Caused ne- 

spontaneous and intrinsic. Cause can do no SeWn! 
more than put into the volition the necessity sic * 
to exist. That is, cause simply infuses the necessity into 
Will for the volition ; and the necessity thereby becomes 
an intrinsic necessity in the Will for the sole putting- 
forth. Cause, as has been said, expires as soon as effect 
exists, but the necessity for the effect to exist even then 
still remains intrinsic in the agent or subject of the effect. 
So that, whether by a specific cause or not, the necessity 
is ever intrinsic. In the one case the intrinsic necessity 
is caused once for all in the primal causation of Will 
itself; in the other it waits for the specific cause. 

Nevertheless, Mr. Lyall's obedience of volition to mo- 
tive is, in spite of himself, caused by motive. For by 
intrinsic necessity it acts according to the motive ; anc| 



214 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 
T . . . the motive decides and fixes, determines and 

Intrinsic ne- ' 

causeS ne- secures what the act shall necessarily be, and 
cessity. other than which it cannot be. It is the same 
old clock-hammer freedom — power to without power 
from. Between the motive and the act the relation is 
necessitative, for the motive is the antecedent by whose 
strongest force the act necessarily takes place. 

To be an effect is to be determined necessarily in 
direction and measure by an antecedent. But the re- 
sult in the case of intrinsic necessity depends upon, 
is fixed by, the antecedent. But to be necessarily de- 
pendent upon and fixed by a previous antecedent is to 
be necessitatively caused by it. The antecedent causes 
the intrinsic necessity of the agent to act in a certain 
measure and direction in conformity to itself. In respect 
to responsibility this necessitation differs not from caus- 
ation. 



■*•»■ 



CHAPTEEXII. 

INVARIABLE SEQUENCES OR SPONTANEOUS NE- 
CESSITY. 

It was Mr. Hume who first performed that analysis by 
which the sequence of cause and effect was reduced to 
"a constant conjunction of objects;" and the idea of 
constant " cause " or " causation " was placed by him in 
conjunction, ^.j^ ca t e gory of "prejudices" arising from 
" custom." So far did he carry his analysis as to invalidate 
the legitimacy of all assurance that the stated consequent 
will follow the experiential antecedent. Dr. Thomas 
Brown, taking this theory, identified the connection of 
cause and effect as mere " invariable sequence ;" banished 
Hume and causation from existence ; but, with at least 
theories. a less absurd philosophy, legitimatized the eor~ 



Sect. 2.] INVARIABLE SEQUENCES. 215 

pectation of the sequent upon the experiential antece- 
dent, as a valid intuition of all mind. 

This theory has been adopted by two very different 
classes of thinkers. First is the class who, sequences 
adopting it with strict consistency, apply it tionai! 
alike to all the dynamical sequences of mental and physi- 
cal science. Second are those (generally among theolo- 
gians alone) who admit causation in the phe- And voli . 
nomena of physics and of intellection, but ex- tionaJ - 
elude it from the sphere of free agency; therein substi- 
tuting Invariable Sequence. Between these two classes 
the question is whether or not the causations of physi- 
cal and volitional action are alike reducible to Invariable 
Succession. To the former class belongs a large class of 
naturalistic savans, including the positivists John Stuart 
Mill and Comte. To the latter class belong, especially 
in this country, the body of necessitarian theologians who 
desire, in phraseology at least, to recognize the alterna- 
tive power of the human Will.* These two classes in 
order w^e may now discuss. 

I. Mr. Hume congratulated himself (ironically perhaps) 
upon the result of his analysis as furnishing a termination 
to the controversy upon necessity. In this fancy he is 
followed by some of his followers. Mr. Mill, in his con- 
fused chapter on Liberty and Necessity, con- UniversalIn . 
tained in his work on Logic, takes this ground. vanablllt y- 
Necessity, all that there is, simply implies the fact that a 

* The theory, however^ nearly if not quite coincides with the view of 
Leibnitz. For instance, take the following passage from his " Causa 
Dei Asserta :" 

"Libertas exempta est tarn a necessitate, quam a coactone. Necessi- 
tatem non faciunt futuritio veritatum, nee praescientia et praeordinatio 
Dei, nee praedispositio verum. Non futuritio: licet enim futurorum 
contingentium sit determinata Veritas, certitudo tamen objectiva, ser 
infallibilis determinatioveritatis,quse illis inest, minime necessitati con- 
fundenda est." — Opera, p. 660. 

Leibnitz moreover invented the doctrine of a Sufficient Reason ; that 
is, an adequate antecedent which in physics the sequent always must 
obey and in free agency will obey. 



216 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

volition, like every other effect, is " an invariable se- 
quence" of the existing sum total of " antecedents." That 
including * s ' ^^ we know au * tne antecedency complete- 
wm. ij^ we com( i infallibly predict the consequent 

volition — we should know how the man will act. And 
surely, he argues, this sure and invariable futurition 
ought not to be called Necessity. To which we may 
briefly reply, 

1. That we should be able to predict which way a 
person will choose from knowing him perfectly, is more 

Prediction of tnan an y one * s a ^ e to a ffi rm - That there is 
volitions. mucn ground for probable prediction we have 
fully shown in what we have said upon the Influence of 
Motives and upon Uniformity of Volitions. But this 
assumption is, that we only need the perceptive power to 
analyze the exact interior mechanism of Will, and a 
perfect motiveometer to take the dynamics of the forces 
in contact with that machinery, to calculate with as abso- 
lute mathematical accuracy the direction and the mo- 
mentum of every future volition, as we can the direction 
and momentum of a material machine. This is precise 
necessity. It finds an agent a true machine. It is based 
upon its mechanical dynamic. And it is a pure, gratui- 
tous, and most unnatural assumption. If we could clair- 
voyantly look upon the interior of a man's mental being 
we might, and if consciousness and moral sense are ve- 
racious we should, find a controlling alternative power 
which would baffle our predictive inferences. 

We do not understand that it is by an accurate trac- 
Foreknowi- ing of cause and a reasoning to effect, that God 
calculation, foreknows the way in which a free-agent will 
act, but by the uncaused perfection of his own absolute 
omniscience. It is not in the divine mind calculatio??, 
but pure knowledge, taking in the fact past, present, and 
future precisely in its form and nature. Had we, there- 
fore, power to inspect all the elements of a free agent's na- 
ture to the utmost, and power to deduce all the legiti- 



Sect. 2.] INVARIABLE SEQUENCES. 217 

mate inferences therefrom, it is neither self-evident nor 
demonstrable, nor naturally probable, that we should by 
calculation foreknow the agent's future free act. As a 
free choice is not a necessary result of a given cause, so 
a reasoning from inalternative cause to effect would fail 
to furnish a sure prediction. To make the conclusion in- 
fallible, the result must be a necessitated result. The 
logical calculator of a free volition would make but a 
probable guess. Far in the ultimate depths of his being 
he would find a self -center, capable of projecting action, 
which, without the intrinsic nature of chance, would be 
as incalculable as the most absolute chance itself. The 
contrary of this is mere assumption ; of no more value at 
any rate than our assumption. 

2. Mr. Mill does not hesitate to admit that our voli- 
tions are on par in this respect with mechanical Volitional 
causations, forces, and operations. My choice chanicS e se- 
is, by his view, in given circumstances as " in- quences - 
variably" resultant, and as fixedly as a bullet from a re- 
volver. We are thus again reduced to a mere mechanical 
freedom, a freedom to the sole but not from. A will is 
just as free as a clock-hammer and no more. Nay, inas- 
much as even mathematical certainty is, in Mr. Mill's view, 
empirical, he must maintain that the agent puts forth voli- 
tion, just as fixedly as 2 and 2 become 4. Now all these 
physical and arithmetical results are, even by Mr. Mill, 
called necessary. Why not the equally sure and fixed 
future volition ? ~ 

3. If it be right to banish that hard looking word Ne- 
cessity, a large retinue of words — all the words implying 
power, efficiency, avoidance, with their con- Necessita . 
trades, and the auxiliaries can and must — must nanterms - 
follow. Nearly every causative verb in the language must 
either be expunged or adapted to new conceptions. For 
if there be such a thing as power and such a true word 
as can, and their negatives, and there be a power to put 
forth a certain volition, and no power to withhold or sub- 



218 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

stitute it, then we shall want some word to express this 
unipotence; and whatever word would serve that pur- 
pose would soon acquire the rigid features of this word 
Necessity. 

4. Nor are we at all helped by Mr. Mill's substitution 
of " invariable sequence" and "antecedence" in the 
place of effect and power. If it be fact that my volitions 
start up before or in me, as independent events — "se- 
quences " — it helps me not a particle ; it distresses me all 
the more to know that they are " invariable." If I have 
no power over them except to stand a passive " antece- 
invariabiiity dent,"- and they come into existence, " invaria- 

bie. bly " tacked to me, it is very hard for me to be 

responsible for them. There is only the power to, not 
the power from. If it be indeed my destiny to be ante- 
cedent of a certain set of " invariable sequents," I see not 
how I can be divinely and justly required to be "antece- 
dent" to another set, over which I have not the least 
power whatever. Moral obligation to a different course 
is thereby impossible. I stand a helpless stock for " in- , 
variable sequences" to be fastened upon; and neither 
praise nor blame, merit nor demerit, guilt nor desert, re- 
sponsibility nor honor, reward nor punishment, can be for 
me any just attribute. 

5. Mr. Mill doubtless would say that reward and pen- 
Penaity an ^7 are tne inducements, that is, the " invaria- 

anS e no e juW hie " motive " antecedents " for the right series 
of volitional " sequents." This reduces penalty 
to a mere expedient — a method — like the application of 
a sidelong force to right a wrong-going mechanism. The 
true morale is thus expunged, the expedient alone re- 
mains. The theory is saved at the terrible expense of 
the annihilation of Eternal Justice. A questionable in- 
tellectual notion is established, but the moral sentiment is 
forever invalidated. 

To this general head we may conveniently refer the 
opinions of Kant, This philosopher, dividing our con- 



Sect. 2.] INVAKIABLE SEQUENCES. 219 

ceptions of things into the phenomenal, or Kant's nou- 
external, or empirical, and the noumenal or dom 
transcendental, places all freedom in the latter. The 
noumenal, concealed in the phenomenal, as the niarrow 
is centralized in the bone, is reached and seen only by 
the intuitions of pure supersensuous thought. Such 
thought recognizes that there is this deep intrinsic sub- 
phenomenal freedom in man, which forms a just basis for 
imputation, by our pure moral intuition, of guilt for sin, 
although all our phenomenal or empirical voli- with P he- 

.. , it, nomenalne- 

tions and external actions are bound to sue- cessity. 
ceed each other by as fated a law of invariable sequence 
as rules over the mechanical operations of physical nature. 
It may indeed be acknowledged in reference to this, 
that freedom is deeply intrinsic in our nature, and that 
it clothes itself to the outward glance with a succession 
of phenomena, very much like a causal succession, very 
much like the wave evolving wave in the current of a 
stream. In volitional, as in external nature, there is a 
large amount of ascertainable causation. In external 
nature, statics and dynamics are capable of accurate 
measures of causation in the form of physical force; 
and where no accurate measurements of causation can 
be taken, science still has not, from any warnings 
of consciousness, or of the moral sense, any fear to apply 
her exact inductions and assume that necessitation reigns 
absolute. But in the volitional sphere we have not gone 
far in this direction before awful consequences loom up 
and stern negatives bar procedure. Plain indications 
reveal themselves that the laws of so much exact result 
for so much exact antecedency are no longer fully 
applicable. Freedom does not clothe herself with 
phenomena bearing, always and unequivocally, the evi- 
dent laws of exact physical causational or invariable 
succession. But a volitional freedom, be it noumenal or 
phenomenal, limited to the process of neces- Noumenal 

. .7 ., , freedom is 

sary suceessional causation, is no responsible mechanical. 



220 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

freedom at all. It is the old mechanical freedom over 
again, the freedom to but not from. It is freedom to a 
solely given direction, and so inalternative. It is 
Edwards's freedom, the power to will as we will. This 
phenomenal, yet actual necessity of volition, is not a jot 
helped by laying under it a noumenal freedom; for if 
that freedom can never give a volition for right against 
the strongest motive force, what is it good for? It 
neither furnishes power for the right or responsibility 
for the wrong. It solves no problem, and furnishes no 
relief. 

II. The second class of thinkers surrender all events 
outside the Will to causational necessity, but subject 
spontaneous volitions onl y to tne la ^ of spontaneity, or 
wlth Ssi coun- invariable sequence to the highest motive. 
ter power. The Will possesses power, but never uses it, 
for counter volition. An agent always can, but never 
will) choose otherwise. This they hold to be the true 
certainty. All volitional certainty thereby presup- 
poses a one particular kind of condition, namely, 
strongest antecedent motive force, and a particular 
kind of result, namely, obedience to the strongest 
motivity under a particular law, namely, invariable 
succession upon major force. Any event or futuri- 
tion not under such condition or law is absurd chance 
or lawless uncertainty. Such Law of Uniformity or 
spontaneity of obedient action under condition of supe- 
rior force is seen to be absolute, not merely in all expe- 
rienced cases, so as to be an induction, but in all possible 
cases, so as to be seen superexperientially and intuitively 
true, and therefore it is self-evident and axiomatic. It 
would be intuitively true, as the contradictory of lawless 
chance, upon an infinite number of repetitions of an infi- 
nite number of cases ; so that it is a strictly absolute 
and true universality. As the sole exemption from a 
self-contradictory chance, it is apodictical, and (so we 



Sect. 2.] INVARIABLE SEQUENCES. 221 

infer) a necessity. But by them it is named certainty, 
and held to be the only true certainty, as distinguished 
from necessity on one side and chance on the other. 

On this theory of so-called certainty we make the fol- 
lowing points : 

1. The advocates of this view must, with us, refute 
the main body of Edwards on the Will. 

We have shown at the various points that whatever 
may be Edwards's occasional professions, (and he never 
professes that his necessity is equivalent to our cer- 
tainty,) his argument demonstrates necessity Edwards 
in distinction from certainty, if any distinction ?xStence°of 
exists, and the non-existence instead of the power, 
non-usance of the power of contrary choice. The cer- 
tainty to which he affirms his necessity to be equivalent 
is the necessitarian's, not the freedomist's certainty 
His argument demonstrates these or nothing. 

At start* he excludes " power of choosing otherwise in 
given cases " as an unthinkability. His argument of the 
infinite series boastfully reduces the conception of diverse 
power to infinities of infinities of contradictions.! His 
causational argument knows only inalternative cause, 
and the effect of any other sort of cause is a causeless 
effect.J He identifies the necessity of a past event and 
of a future event as one.§ His reduction of free Will to 
Atheism proves, if anything, that the supposition of the 
existence of a power of counter choice logically supposes 
the non-existence of God. || His identification of Will 
with desire excludes the possibility of a counter volition 
as truly as of a counter sensation.^" His argument against 
liberty of indifference excludes all power for Will to 

* See this work, p. 29. + Ibid., p. 122. % Ibid., p. 157. § Ibid., p. 63. 

1 Professor Park, in an able article in the Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. ix, 
p. 212, speaks of "the element which Edwards disclosed to the Church, 
the union between certainty and spontaneous choice." But Edwards's 
certainty is as absolute a necessity as the divine existence. A varia- 
tion would be a causeless effect. 

Tf See this work, p. 15. 



222 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

flow but in a certain channel.* All activity is with him a 
passivity, f All causality is exhausted in the result. J In 
none of these arguments can invariable sequence be 
substituted by a modern thinker without destroying the 
argument. Withdraw these arguments and what is 
left of Edwards? A valueless shell from which the 
kernel has been completely extracted. To deny that 
Edwards taught pure necessity as distinct from certainty, 
non-existence as distinct from non-usance, is as absurd 
as to deny that Euclid taught geometry. To demon- 
strate necessity against the existence of a self-determining 
power, that is, a power in the self of determining the 
Will otherwise than a one causal way, is the very object of 
his entire body of argument. To attribute to a man a 
doctrine which he does not affirm is bad enough ; to 
attribute doctrines which he denies is worse ; but what 
shall be said of the attempt to attribute to Edwards the 
very doctrines which it is the very purpose of his work 
to demonstrate to be absurd and unthinkable ? 

For this modern distinction of non-usance of contrary 
power from its non-existence, Edwards had no use. The 
Edwards's object of its invention is to reconcile necessity 
qmrld iot with responsibility ; but . Edwards had other 
power. modes of such a reconciliation, and wholly ig- 
nored this. His modes, as in the proper place is shown, 
were two, and contradictory ones at that. 1. Natural 
ability, which was either a power to will as we will, and 
no otherwise, (a positive contradiction of the power of 
contrary choice,) or a post-volitional power of fulfilling 
the volition. 2. A denial that power must underlie 
responsibility; which is equivalent to affirming that no 
power of contrary choice is requisite in order to obliga- 
tion to contrary choice. Edwards would therefore have 
promptly told these philosophers that their power of con- 
trary choice is as useless as it is absurd. He would have 
soon convinced them that he was not for them a strong- 
* See this work, p. 184. f Ibid., p. 180. % Ibid., p. 97. 



Sect. 2.] INVAKIABLE SEQUENCES. 223 

hold or a standard, but an opponent and a foe, without an 
overthrow of whose positions there is no status for them. 

These Christian philosophers, then, if they are good 
logicians, must cordially unite with us in the Tx . . 
overthrow of nearly the entire body of the ^"eI* re ~ 
argument of Edwards. We both are equally wards - 
bound to refute his position, that there is no power of 
contrary choice. If our argument on this point is valid, 
they are bound to sustain it ; if weak, to strengthen or 
to replace it with a better. And that would be an end 
of Edwards's work as a theological authority. We may, 
indeed, have a subsequent issue with them, namely, upon 
another point. After we have together disproved the 
necessity of Edwards, consisting in the non-existence of 
power of contrary choice, they may attempt to set up 
another necessity consisting in a Law of Invariability, a 
necessity as fixed and as destructive of responsibility as 
the causational necessity of Edwards. Their issue with 
Edwards's positions is then succeeded by an issue with 
us. We deny the necessity both of the law of causation 
and of the law of invariability. 

And when they have cancelled all the arguments of 
Edwards that rigidly prove the non-existence, instead of 
the non-usance of counter power, their theory of non- 
usance is itself left about proofless. The residuum of 
Edwards which they can appropriate will be found the 
least demonstrative part of his argument, a Theywillthen 
part which we trust will have been very amply ^™ s Jf e l 
refuted in this present treatise. A main ob- no & round - 
jection, then, at start against this theory is its destitu- 
tion of evidence. 

2. The doctrine that the Will always can but never 
will volitionate for weaker motive is supposed Always can 

, . _ _ nil' but never 

by its advocates to be covered by the maxim, win. 
which they illustrate by various instances, that many 
thinqs can be but never will be. That maxim 

, . , in* True maxim. 

is true, but it does not cover the doctrine. 



224 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

Theirs is a never-will-be of a specific and a peculiar kind, 
under conditions and presuppositions that nullify the 
can-be. When a will-be or never-will-be under a certain 
fixed sort of condition results with absolute uniformity, 
even upon an infinite number of repetitions of the ex- 
periment,* including all possible cases, then a reverse 
can-be — either to the given will-be or given never-will- 
be — is impossible. The will-be or never-will-be is, then, 
a necessity, and not a mere certainty. The sort of 
condition in this present case is the strongest motive; 
and a certain obedience assumable, invariably and eter- 
nally, without exception, even in an infinity of repetitions, 
is necessity. 

The maxim that things can be which never will be is 
Cases of its true, for instance, in the following cases, with- 
truth. ou j. CO y er i n g the doctrine of invariability: 

1 . The free-agent always can but never will contradict or 
vary from the way that God foreknows; but that, as 
1 Foreknowi- snown m tne proper place, is a case in which 
edge verified. a con stant cause, Omniscience, ever operates 
adequate to foreknow the way which with power other- 
wise will be chosen, and so, without necessity on the 
choice, is necessity of result and agreement between fore- 
knowledge and choice. 2. God always can but never 

2. God's right w ^ ^° counter to right; but that is simply 
doing. tne g rm p ur p 0se f one ^ n ot f an infinite num- 
ber of agents. 3. Of all the rejected possible volitions 
or nolitions of all free agents, it is true, each and every 

3. Rejected 0ne > ^ nat ^ Can ^ ui W ^ n0i ^ e / ^Ut tnat * S not 

volitions. tne infinite repetition of equivalent or identical 
cases, but an infinite variety of single, peculiar, and indi- 
vidual cases. It is simply a collection of all the cases in 
which a possible volition is rejected; not of uniform 
cases under given conditions. But what is affirmed by 
thk theory is that a strongest motive case, repeated an 
infinite number of times by an infinite number of agents 
* See p. 85. 



Sect. 2.J INVARIABLE SEQUENCES. 225 

and by all possible free agents, is intuitively seen to be 
sure of the same result. 

It is also said to be true that nobody does as well as 
he can, and so there is a can-be which never None d0 weU 
will-be. Distributively or individually, that is as they can - 
not true. People often do do as well as they can. Our 
Lord testified of one that u she hath done what she 
could." People sometimes, but not usually, do as bad 
as they can in the given case. But the maxim may 
mean, collectively, nobody through his whole life does as 
well as he can. If that means that/ree agents, who have 
the evil and the good constantly tempting them, are in 
the highest degree likely to choose sometimes one and 
sometimes the other, that is true. But we have else- 
where* shown that it may be true distributively that an 
agent is able to choose in each and every single instance 
for the rightest and best without being able to choose 
always rightest and best. This high collective can, 
therefore, is not true. Mankind cannot choose as well 
as they can. It is, on the vjhole, a pure and impossible 
ideal. Nor is it quite certain that there are no ones 
who collectively do not on the whole do as well, at a 
lower scale, as they can; and who, if they should as- 
cetically strain for a higher can, would, in fact, do 
worse. 

3. Pure certainty, as in the proper place we define the 
word, and as distinct from necessity, is not invariability 
predicable of, nor to be identified with, invaria- tainty. 
ble sequence, or with the relation between the ante- 
cedent and consequent of such a relation. This, our pure 
certainty, is the simple futurition of an event which is 
possible to be otherwise. Invariability is no element of 
certainty. Pure certainty is the pure futurition of the 
event irrespective of invariability. To add that such a 
certainty is limited to a sole condition of strongest ante- 
cedent force, and is ruled and fixed by a law of sequence 

* See p. 132. 
15 



226 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

and to a sole result, furnishes new elements not belong- 
ing to the idea of pure futurition. This becomes a cer- 
tainty of a special class of the entire genus, which is 
really no certainty at all. For if the so-called certain act 
is formulated by a previous fixed universal law, selecting a 
particular set or sort of facts, then to that law it must con- 
form ; and that is necessity. The totality of facts which 
must be presupposed as taking existence under restric- 
tion of this Law of Invariability .is an entirely different 
totality ; that is, embraces facts entirely different from 
the totality of pure, unrestricted certainty. A Will or 
system of Wills, producing volitions under a certain law 
of sequence, would supposably produce an entirely dif- 
ferent totality of volitions from a Will or system of 
Wills producing volitions unrestricted by such law. Any 
anterior prototype decree, rule, configuration, especially 
an eternal one, and still more a universal one, founded on 
the very nature of things, to which the free act, by the 
nature of the case in all possible instances, conforms, 
causes it to be no certainty but necessity. To be pure 
Preformed certainty the anterior prototype must take its 
necessity, form or configuration wholly from the posterior 
free act ; and if the act must take its configuration from 
the prefixed prototype, it has no longer freedom, nor 
pure certainty, but necessity. Such conformity being 
pre-assumed, the act must be accordant and cannot be 
otherwise; and that is necessity. For the predestinarian, 
however, on the other hand, to affirm the ultimate con- 
forming of the free act to an anterior configuration, 
which configuration has in truth been antecedently con- 
formed to the free shaping of said free act, to be equally 
a necessity, is inadmissible. The free act would then 
only be conformed to a true expression of itself; that is, 
would be conformed to and be itself. But if the anterior 
configuration take its shape not from the free act, but 
from some other independent source, be it the divine 
decree or an axiomatic law, (as, for instance, of Invaria- 



Sect. 2.] INVARIABLE SEQUENCES. 227 

bility,) and in order to its own truth requires the act to 
conform to itself, the act is not free.* 

Hence the phrase to secure the certainty of a free act 
is absurd, because contradictory.! To secure « Secured 
a thing truly and absolutely is to make an op- certalnt y" 
posite thing impossible. To secure the safety of a sum 
of money is to prevent the possibility of its abstrac- 
tion. To secure the impregnability of a fortress is to 
prevent the possibility of its taking. To secure the 
certainty of a thing is to preclude the possibility of an 
opposed or different certainty. Now a pure certain- 
ty, as above shown, cannot be anteriorly secured, caused, 
shaped independently, but as it takes shape from (not 
gives shape to) the future free act. The true cer- 
tainty is simply the futurition ; and the futurition takes 
its nature and being from (and not vice versa) the free 
volition. " Coming events cast their shadows before," 
and it is the event which shapes, secures, fixes, causes 
the anterior shadow, not the shadow the event. To " se- 
cure the certainty" anteriorly to and independently of 
the event, is to destroy its nature of certainty and make it 
necessity. To secure it according to a previous universal 
Law attains a different individual event and a different set 
of events from the events of a futurition free from that Law. 
The securing the previous certainty of the event can be 
doue only by securing the event itself in the future 
by which such certainty is caused or shaped; and 
to secure the event is to destroy the power of 

* Prof. Park (Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. ix, p. 177) says New England 
Calvinism maintains "that a sinner can perform what a reasonable law 
requires of him, and [yet] that he certainly never will do as well as he 
can, unless by a special interposition of Heaven. " But this " certainly- 
never-will" is secured by an absolute law of Invariable Sequence, name- 
ly, of obedience to strongest motive force, an exception to which would 
be chance, uncertainty, and Atheism. With what truth is it said, then, 
that the sinner "can" achieve such an exception? Can chance and 
Atheism be made true? Or what practicable basis does such a u can" 
afford for responsibility, retribution, or theodicy ? 

t See p. 282. 



228 NECESSITARIAN" ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. |Tart H, 

contrariety and transform the whole into necessity. The 
freedom and responsibility of the act expire in the process. 
To secure the certainty of an event is, as has been said, 
to secure the event itself in the future. This securing the 
secured event can only be by a causative influence ex- 
event, tending from the securing antecedent to the 
event itself. This antecedent must both positively fix the 
event and also exclude efficiently all contradictory events. 
But that would be a necessitated, not a merely certain 
event. 

A necessitarian writer* says: "To say c an event cer- 
tainly will take place,' is one thing ; to say c an event must 
necessarily take place,' is another thing." True. But 
to say that it is previously secured that an event will take 
place, that is, that the event is secured to take place in the 
future, is to say that it is necessitated to take place, that it 
cannot but take place, and so must necessarily take place. 
To bring into existence some event sequently upon 
which an agent will perform, with full power otherwise, 
certain se- a volitional act, is not to secure the certainty. 

quence is . . . _ _- « 

not secured. A minister preaches a most excellent sermon, 
and one of his pewholders sequently blasphemes about it. 
Now the sermon did not " secure " (that is, render the 
opposite impossible) either the certainty or the blasphemy. 
The certainty is not an anteriorly secured matter. It 
is simply futurition, and takes its existence from the shap- 
ing of the free act and from nothing else. But to secure 
the certainty of a future act by bringing into existence an 
object or event which includes the future act within the 
law of invariable sequence is to necessitate that future act. 
The substituting invariable sequence for necessity of 
volition does not, consequently, clear the Divine Being 
from the authorship of sin. God is thereby made to 
bring the agent within the invariable sequence of sin, 
which is as true a necessity as the sequences of causation. 
Predestinarians at the present day define decree or 
* Rev. Mr. Eiske, Bib. Sac, April, 1862, p. 405. 



Sect. 2.] INVAKIABLE SEQUENCES. 229 

predestination as simply rendering certain the free act of 
the agent. And by this phrase is meant that God so 
plans as that the event is brought into the category of in- 
variable volitional sequences, so that a completely new 
theological nomenclature comes into use, softening pre- 
destination in words, but retaining it intact in fact. Thus 
Mr. Fiske says : " By the doctrine of divine decrees we 
mean that God from eternity purposed or de- predestinat- 

ed secured 

termined so to constitute and govern the uni- certainty, 
verse as to make it certain that all events would take 
place precisely as they do take place." — P. 401. "The 
decrees of God are not merely his purposes to permit 
events to take place as they do. Some hold with regard 
to the existence of sin, we can only affirm that the divine 
decrees extend to it in the sense that God determines to 
permit it, that is, not to prevent it. But the decrees of 
God are not mere negatives. They are purposes positively 
to do something, and to do that which renders certain 
the existence of all events, sin included." — P. 404. 

The phrase here to " make certain " is equivalent to 
" secure a certainty." The phrase to " render certain " 
is ambiguous. It may signify to cause that an agent 
will do a thing excluding from him power for any other 
doing by setting in operation a train of causations secur- 
ing his act. In that sense we reject the phrase, Render or 
for the thing is necessity. Or it may mean tain. 
the doing a thing sequently upon which an agent will do 
some other thing. Thus, I may give a servant a direc- 
tion to do a thing, and he, in a spirit of perverse inde- 
pendence, does the opposite. Did I cause, produce, cre- 
ate, or make the certainty, or render it certain that he 
will do so? I think not. Certainty is not a made 
thing. It is simply this — that he will so do, and all 
its reality receives existence from the doing, reflected 
backward. If, however, this is all that is meant 
by Mr. Fiske, that God does a thing sequently upon 
which there arises a volition or act from man, that is 



230 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

what Arminians have ever held. But that is not Cal- 
vinism. 

The Princeton Essayist (p. 70) argues that inasmuch 
as the doctrine of foreknowledge concedes that all future 
Foreordina- events are certain and foreordination does 

foreknow?- nothing more than to render them certain, 
therefore there is no difference between the 
two. We reply, 1. If God renders the future event cer- 
tain so as to secure its coming into existence, he is made 
responsible for its existence. To render a thing certain 
is to secure its existence in the future and so to become 
its author. The difference then between the certainty of 
the event secured by foreordination, and the simple cer- 
tainty apart from foreordination, is that one makes God 
the author of sin, and the other does not. 2. This se- 
curing a certainty secures according to a certain special 
rule ; and so secures a special set of facts, differing from 
those involved in a simple certainty. Foreknowledge 
and predestination therefore presuppose different courses 
of events. 3. By this foreordaining securement of a 
special set of facts, the facts are made to accord with the 
antecedent causational securement or predestination, and 
not, reversely, the anteriority conformed to the posterior 
result. 

Dr. Bonar, of Scotland, narrates a colloquial argument 
to the following effect : You admit that in order to fore- 
•' Fixed" fu- knowledge the future event must be certain and 

tme events, fi xe $ . w m you p i ease to tell who fixed it ? In 
this argument the word fixed has two separate meanings, 
namely, as an adjective and a verb. The axioms of mathe- 
matics prefixed; will you please to tell us who fixed them ? 
The adjective fixe d, as applied to a future alternative act, 
if properly applied at all, signifies simply certain; that 
is, the act which of several possible acts will be per- 
formed. And that fixed futurition does not need that 
anybody should fix it. Its future certainty is simply its 
will-be; and that requires no present cause, nor any 



Beet. 2.] INVARIABLE SEQUENCES. 231 

cause whatever, excepting the future agent who will per- 
form it. 

4. Our ground, as already stated,* is, that where it is 
a conceded point that a volition would be put Universal 
forth in the given or equivalent case, not only is necessity. 
by all actual but all possible free agents, the case is not 
a certainty, but a necessity, and the counter power is an 
unreality. The case must take its place with all other 
facts or laws among fixed principles founded in the na- 
ture of things. 

This fact of spontaneous Invariability must be validly 
pronounced to be a necessary Law, as absolute Necessary 
and as necessary as the Law of causation, be- Law - 
ing secured in fact by necessary causation. 

It extends in its true statement not only to all actual, 
but to all possible cases. If any actual or possible 
diverse be admitted that indeed alters the case, for we then 
have a crude freedomism hereafter to be considered. f 
It must be held that God himself cannot create a being 
w r ho will choose counter to highest motive, for if he can 
man should be that being. For man is the being re- 
quired to act out of that Law of Invariability For allpossi . 
both by the moral Law and by his own high- blecases - 
est w T ell-being. If then such a case as a chooser against 
strongest motive is impossible to exist even to Almighty 
power, the invariability covers all possible cases in every 
part of the universe through absolute eternity and as ex- 
ceptionlessly as the Law of causation. It exists immu- 
tably in the nature of things ; and what by the very na- 
ture of things exists, exists necessarily, and exists necessar- 
ily every moment and in all its individual instances and 
particular acts. It is not an induction to be held true 
until contradicted by some counter experience; but an 
intuition to be held true in all possible cases, the possible 
counter being intuitively excluded. It is not created and 
empirical, like the Law of gravitation ; but uncreated and 
* See p. 132. t See p. 238. 



232 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

primordial, like the law of causation, modifying the na- 
ture of creation itself. Like the Law of Causation, it is 
strictly and self-evidently assumable of all its species of 
instances. It is then a necessary and absolute Law; 
and to it as a Law its subjects are subordinated ; and to 
attribute to them a power to break it is a contradiction. 
You might just as well attribute to inalternative effect 
the power to nullify its own causation. No act or event 
can break an axiomatic Law. 

For that which is seen, not experientially and induc- 
tively, but intuitively, to be strictly true of all possible 
cases, universally and eternally is self-evident and neces- 
intuitiveiy sar 7' Self-evident, for that is the very nature 
seen. Q f intuitive truth, which is whatever is seen, 

not through media and evidence, but immediately and 
by its own self-presentation. Whatever is self-evidently 
true is necessarily true ; for the basis of the self-evidence 
in the thing must intrinsically and necessarily verify the 
intuition. The intuition is fixedly and necessarily true ; 
and the correspondent fact must be as fixed as the truth 
of the intuition. An intuitive truth defining the mode 
of a subject's action is a necessary law, and the action 
and the law are necessary each; a necessary type and 
antitype of each other, the necessity of each insuring the 
necessity of the other. Now what in the present case 
And so nee- * s tnus intuitively seen as universal and eternal 
essary. j n ^ Wjn, as Will, is* the invariable accord- 
ance of all Will with strongest motive force. That 
accordance, therefore, is necessary. And that necessity 
stands in contradiction to the power of an opposite fact, 
a contrary choice. A necessity and a counter possibility 
cannot coexist. 

As a basis for the affirmation of such invariability in 
the Will, the intuition must cognize in Will, as Will, a 
sufficient ground, nature, and cause to exclude all oppo- 
site or exception. That cause, intrinsic to Will, as Will, 
must be inseparable and necessary. Its effect, namely, 



Sect. 2.] INVARIABLE SEQUENCES. 233 

this invariability, is also necessary. For it is, in the na- 
ture of things, commensurate, and completely resultant in 
the effect in all possible cases, and cannot fail. The coun- 
ter event is completely excluded, by a cause in its own 
nature efficient and resultant in all possible cases. The 
counter is therefore impossible. A will-not-be which is 
prevented from existing by antecedent commensurate 
causation, in all possible cases and in the nature of things 
which cannot be otherwise, cannot exist. A Acausat ionai 
will-be whose counter is by the nature of necessity - 
things efficiently and resultantly excluded in all possible 
cases, is a must-be. It is a secured certainty=a neces- 
sity. And, being grounded on inseparable cause intrin- 
sic to and inseparable from all Will as Will, it is a caus- 
ational necessity. 

Prof. Ly all's theory (p. 212) is that Will possesses 
a spontaneous intrinsic necessity to obey strongest mo- 
tive without a counter power ; this theory is 

, .^, x , Spontaneity, 

that, with a counter power by necessary spon- 
taneity unused, there is a spontaneous intrinsic necessity 
to obey strongest motive. By both theories there is 
equally a necessary spontaneity to obey strongest mo- 
tive. By the present theory there is negatively a neces- 
sary spontaneous necessity of non-usance of counter power, 
and positively a spontaneous necessity to obey strongest 
motive. And these two are one necessity. But as 
before argued, a power by necessity unused by the 
agent is not a power at the command of the agent, and 
so is truly not in his possession. He cannot do the act, 
and so his power for it does not truly belong to him. 

It is the non-usance of the counter power=the positive 
strongest-motive volition, which lies in the , 

° ' The direct 

eternally uniform succession of events ; that is, ^iiabf se- 
in "the constant conjunction" of Hume, the quent - 
" invariable sequence " of Brown, and the " unconditional 
invariable sequence " of John Stuart Mill. It amounts 
to this, that the non-usance is the sequent of a given 



234 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

antecedent, unconditionally, in all time and place. How 
far it, hence, differs from Lyall's spontaneous necessity of 
action according to cause, or from the invariability of 
physical events as held by Brown, let the reader judge. 

5. The arguments adduced in behalf of this uniformitv 

demonstrate the impossibility of contrary choice, and so 

demonstrate necessity. To deny invariable se- 

i£variL e bii? f °i uence ? as our freedomism does, it is argued, is 

lty * to introduce an absurd and inconceivable un- 

certainty into all volitional events. It dissolves all firm 
relations and disintegrates all moral system. It abandons 
the world to random Chance and consequent Atheism. L, 
takes away that fixedness of future events by which they 
can be the subjects of a sure foreknowledge. 

If this argument is solid then all choice is necessary, 
and all counter choice is impossible in the nature of 
things. For chance is impossible. Uncertainty is im- 
proves ne- possible. The defeat of God's foreknowledge 

cessity. j g impossible. Not a single case of chance, 
uncertainty, or defect of God's prescience is able to 
occur. The non-existence and contradictory of these is 
absolute, universal, eternal. The opposite of these, to 
wit, uniform choice for strongest motive, is therefore an 
absolute necessity. 

If to act counter the " invariable sequence " is chance, 
then freedom, consisting in a power of choice counter to 
chance, then, invariability, is a power for absurd and impos- 

is freedom! s ^] e chance, and the act is an act of chance. 
To obey God against the strongest counter motive, is 
to act chance; and a life of obedience to God's law 
against temptations sufficiently powerful, is a life of 
absurd chance. God requires of a man in such a case to 
act by chaotic chance, and damns him to all eternity 
because he does not act by chance, but does act as all 
free rational moral intelligences, God himself included, 
through all the universe and through all eternity have 
acted, and ever do and ever will act. 



Sect. 2.] INVARIABLE SEQUENCES. 235 

6. Nor does this scheme explain the sense of conscious 
and self-condemning guilt. All guilt has by it this excuse 
and justification, that there is no being in the A11 alike 
universe, high or low, finite or infinite, that in would sin * 
the same category, namely, of strongest motive, would 
not commit the same guilty act. Whether the mos 
pious saint or the most abandoned sinner, whether the 
purest angel or the blackest demon, whether a blended 
character or an extreme, all alike, high or low, finite or 
infinite, do will for the same one highest motive or uni- 
form standard of accordance. The merit hereby of all 
the good, is not that they would do any better than the 
worst. It is only their fortune that they are not in the 
same predicament. Place any other actual free agent or 
any other possible free agent in the same category and 
he would do the same. Guilt is then a matter of posi- 
tion, a thing of accident, chance, or fate. Place any real 
or conceptual being in the right relation and he is a 
sinner. 

The sinner, then, has ample precedent for his sin. He 
is authorized and justified in sin by the sanction of all 
beings really or virtually in his place. The universe is 
on his side. His sin has this surpassing excel- 
lence, that there is no being, however excellent, 
wise, or powerful, that would not in the same category, 
though endowed with the power of choosing otherwise, 
choose exactly as he does. Sin is, therefore, excellent, 
being the virtual act of all excellent beings. 

And yet how is one agent any more morally excellent 
than another? All are ready, however endowed with 
contrary power, to sin just as soon as the proper con- 
ditions are presented. The criminal stands on distinc 
the same ground of exculpation or inculpation afcha/^tS 
as the judge, the sinner as the preacher, the destroyed - 
demon as the angel, the Satan as the Messiah. All owe 
their accident of excellence to their position ; all are po- 
tentially and virtually alike, good or evil. The trans- 



236 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

gressor, but for the circumstantial category in which he 
stands, is as good as the saint, the devil as good as the 
angel. The culprit can call all beings to acquit him. He 
has the entire Totality with him. The line of moral dis- 
tinctions is expelled from the sum of existing things. 

This theory is framed for a practical purpose, namely, 
to evade the intuitive feeling of the impossibility of re- 
sponsibility for a necessitated act. It thereby admits 
that impossibility. It is specially framed to enable the 
necessitarian preacher of righteousness to remove all ex- 
cuse from inability to do otherwise than sin, even accord- 
ing to strongest motive. It is thought, forsooth, to be 
Theory prac- verv effective to be able to say to the sinner, 
ticaiiybad. u Plead not the strength of temptation; you 
are able to disobey the most powerful temptation and 
the strongest motive, and so are without excuse." This 
is a " Moral Ability ;" that is, a claimed Volitional Abil- 
ity to put forth the required volition, and the preacher 
is able to use the words of the freest Arminianism. But, 
alas ! this preacher here tells but a part of his story. He 
conceals what he knows to be fact, what proves this 
Moral Ability a worthless ideality, and what is the sin- 
ner's valid and ample excuse. Let that preacher tell that 
sinner, "You are condemned for not disobeying the 
highest motive because you had the power. It is true, 
no man ever did use that power, no man ever will. Nor 
will any being, angelic or archangelic, demoniac or dia- 
bolical, ever exert that power. Every being that ever 
did exist, or ever will exist, or ever can exist, will do 
and would have done just as you have done. I should 
have done the same, Gabriel would have done the same, 
Jesus Christ would have done the same, the blessed Je- 
hovah would have done the same. But you, for doing 
just what I, what Christ, what God would have done, are 
to be condemned to everlasting death." Surely any sin- 
ner would feel it intuitively just to reply, "If I am con- 



Sect. 2.] INVARIABLE SEQUENCES. 237 

demned for doing what all other beings would do and 
have done, why should not they be condemned with me? 
How is the throne of my judge less guilty than I?" 
Go to the sinner, Mr. Preacher, with such a story and 
you are logically and demonstratively estopped. Go to 
the sinner with such a story lurking concealed in your 
theory, and you ought to he estopped, logically and mor- 
ally: logically because your theory is absurd, morally 
because your concealment is deceptive. 

There is no other way of solving the problem of re- 
sponsibility, justice, guilt, and remorse, than Freedom alone 
by the hypothesis of a counter power which sponsibmty. " 
may be supposed as practically used, in act, against the 
so-called strongest motive. The proposition that con- 
sciousness affirms the prevalence of strongest motive as 
uniformly our own case, and therefore by an induction 
always the case of all, can never be proved. I am, as a 
man, sensible that I choose, or have chosen, against the 
strongest reasons, against the strongest temptations, and 
against the strongest moral obligations, and so to all ap- 
pearance against the strongest motives. No conscious- 
ness of mine asserts this invariable prevalence of strong- 
est motive. 

7. Against this theory the question lies in full force, 
What is the use of a power which is never used by any 
being whatever ? The answers which we have The theory 
rendered in our own behalf* cannot avail for useless - 
this theory. It cannot be said that there is no anteced- 
ent class of unused motives. For, by this theory, there is 
antecedently a class which will be used and a class which 
will be rejected. Nor can it be said that it is a power 
which may be used for a good purpose ; for it is useless 
to expect that such a purpose will ever be attained. 
Nor can it serve in any degree as a basis for a just 
divine government; for no divine ruler could ever re- 
quire an act of righteousness which neither himself nor 
* See p. 113. 



238 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

any possible being in the conditions would ever perform, 
namely, the act of choosing contrary to the uniform law 
of motive. Of what use, then, is this power tacked to 
the being ? It serves no purpose ; it elucidates no diffi- 
culty ; it satisfies no moral demand ; it is not good for 
anything. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

COUNTER CHOICE A PRODIGY. 

A few thinkers there are who abandon necessity, both 
causation al and uniformitarian, and maintain that counter 
choice may supposably happen, but nevertheless is an 
extraordinary or a prodigy. 

Against such a view we can of course have little argu- 
ment; for our issue is with necessitarianism, and these 
This theory thinkers advocate a real freedomism however 
freedomistic. cru( j ee Edwards maintained that counter choice 
is unthinkable ; they maintain that it may be held, not 
only as thinkable, but as often taking place ; for extraor- 
dinaries in the course of centuries do often happen. 

This freedomism, however, can scarce give a rational 
account of itself, either to the reason or the moral sense. 
For if necessity and uniformitarianism are fairly aban- 
doned, and freedom consists in counter choice supposably 
sometimes made, why should not either alternative be 
often equally easy, probable, and normal? What rea- 
son is there for supposing such choice may happen which 
does not indicate that it may ordinarily happen ? More- 
over, since this view admits that power is 

Incomplete. .. .. . « ._ _ . 

necessary to obligation, it follows that the 
greater the prodigy the less the guilt of non-perform- 
ance. Is it just to require of weak man the perform- 
ance of prodigies ? Here these thinkers stand upon an 
inclined plane, perpetually tending to diminish the pro- 



xSect. 2.] "MORAL INABILITY." 239 

digiousness to justify the divine government, and ever 
descending to the level of plain freedomism. But as 
it is of the purely natural man they affirm Tendg to Pe 
this freedom, this descent is into old Pelagian- la s ianism - 
ism. From this they can be saved only by the Arminian 
doctrine that grace underlies all our moral probationary 
freedom; a doctrine that affords a freedomism ample 
enough for the broadest Pelagianism, and an honor to 
divine grace that should satisfy the highest Calvinism. 



CHAPTEE XIY. 



VOLITIONAL POWERLESSNESS, OR "MORAL INA- 
BILITY."* 

The necessitarian has demonstrated to his own satis- 
faction that for volition, even for right, against strongest 
motive-force, there is in the agent no adequate causality 
or power, and that such volition would be volitional 
what, by a forcible solecism, may be called a aiity. 
causeless effect; and this non-causality-in-Will==volitional 
powerlessness he is pleased to style " Moral Inability." 
The common sense of mankind then demands Bas i Sofob ii. 
what obligation there can be upon any agent or gation? 
cause to produce, without causality or power, an act 
which is best expressed by a solecism in words, because 
it is a contradiction in thought and in thing. 

1. His answer, according to Edwards, shouldbe that no 
power to an act is necessary in order to obligation; no 
power from an act in order to responsibility or guilt. 

* In necessitarian nomenclature "Moral Ability" is the power to 
will ^volitional ability or power. "Natural Ability" is the sequent 
power to obey or fulfill the volition ;=post-volitional ability. A man 
wills to strike by a "moral ability;" the arm executes the blow by a 
" natural ability." 



240 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

His maxim is, no matter how we came by act; if it be 
owr$) the merit or demerit is the same* When, there- 
fore, he proceeds to furnish the underlying power upon 
which responsibility is really based, he contradicts him- 
No basis yet se ^ The whole procedure of furnishing any 

basis. ability whatever for the act in order tx> 

obligation is absurd. It is affirmed that responsibil- 
contradic- ^7 * s without a basis of power and yet has 

tion first. a ]3 as i s f power. We will call this con- 
tradiction number first. 

2. But when he proposes to furnish an underlying 
power for the required act, of course it must be what he 
proposes to furnish, namely, an ability for the required 
, act. It must not be some other ability, and for some 
other act or thing. Now, what he is to furnish is the abil- 
ity for the volition required.f But what does our neces- 
sitarian do ? He is compelled by his own great demon- 
stration to admit and maintain that there is no causality, 
power, or ability in the Will (" Moral Ability ") for the 
volition required. And so in the lieu of that he proceeds 

Power no to sa y tnat though there is in the Will no power 
power. £ or t k e yoijtion- — no Moral Ability — yet there is 
out of the Will in the agent a power — " Natural Abil- 
ity" — for obeying, fulfilling, or post-volitionally execut- 
Contradic- m & tne volition, provided it could and did 

tion second, ex j gt> The man wh() hag nQt the p()wer to 

will is responsible, because he has power to externally 
do — if he did will. This, we say, is furnishing a power 

* See p. 402. 

t Edwards says, (p. 228,) " The Will itself, and not only (merely) those 
acts which are the effect of the Will, is the proper object of precept or 
command. . . . The motions or state of the body are matter of com- 
mand only as they are subject to the soul, and connected with its acts. . 
But now the soul has no other faculty whereby it can, in the most direct 
and proper sense, yield to or comply with any command but the fac- 
ulty of the Will. . . . Other acts, that are not acts of the Will ... are 
obedience or disobedience only indirectly, as they are connected with 
the state or actions of the Will, according to an established law of na- 
ture,' ' etc. 



Sect. 2.] "MORAL INABILITY." 241 

for the act required which is not the poicer for the 
act required/ and this we label contradiction number 
second. 

This contradictoriness, number second, is self-evident. 
The thing claimed to be furnished is a power for a given 
volition ; but the very point, aim, or gist of the whole 
necessitarian argument is to demonstrate that no power 
for the given volition, the sole power required, can exist; 
and for that power he substitutes a power which is not 
in the Will, nor for a volition ; but it is a power out 
of the Will and for a post-volitional and ordinarily a 
mere corporeal, material act. Now this, we „ 

A . . Power out of 

say, is a self-evident contradiction. It is a f™* Q ™£ 
power furnished which is in the Will, but is thing - 
not in any sense in the Will ; it is for a volition, which 
is in no sense a volition. 

If the power be not in the Will it is not anywhere. 
Nowhere else can there be any power to the Power no _ 
purpose. It might just as well be a power in where - 
the Pleiades as even in the agent out of the Will. And 
if it be not for a volition, but for something And for 
post-volitional, it is nothing to the case ; noth- nothm &- 
ing in the world is done. It might, so far as human 
responsibility is concerned, be a power in the Pleiades to 
discard gravitation. 

3. But there is a self-contradiction number third. This 
" natural ability " is the power in the agent to fulfill the 
volition ; but what volition ? A volition which Contradic _ 
not only does not and cannot exist, but which it is tlon third - 
the very purpose of the entire necessitarian argument to 
prove to be unable to exist. The proffer of this natural 
ability is to furnish a power in the lieu of that demon- 
stratedly impossible volition. The external, oggible 
or post-volitional fulfillment is furnished under Jf^posS- 
the very presumption of the absence and im- ble volltlon * 
possibility of the very volition it is to fulfill. Necessita- 
rianism first demonstrates the impossibility of the voli- 

16 



242 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

tion, and then proposes to base responsibility on the 
power to fulfill or obey that demonstratedly impossible 
volition. The fulfillment is post-volitional, with no pos- 
sible volition before it. It is the fulfillment where there 
can be nothing to fulfill, and is in fact proffered because 
Effect he- there can be nothing for it to fulfill. The very 
caus S e. no fact that there is no possibility for the volition 
is the reason why its imaginary fulfillment is proposed as 
a most solemn reality — a basis for a most momentous 
responsibility. 

Both the exercise and the existence of this natural 
ability are a causeless effect. The exercise of 

•' Natural J , m 

causeless ef- tn ^ s a ^ility would be a causeless effect, because, 
fect - as necessitarianism itself demonstrates, its solely 

possible cause, the antecedent volition, cannot exist. 
The exercise must be the effect ; the antecedent volition 
the cause; but the antecedent volition necessitarianism 
has shown to be itself a contradiction, and so an impos- 
sibility. The exercise then would be an effect without a 
cause. And equally the power for such exercise — the 
"natural ability" itself — must exist only as effect with- 
out cause. Without the existence of that same anteced- 
ent self-contradictory volition, the power for its fulfill- 
ment has no existence. The self-contradictory is the 
cause ; the power to fulfill it is its effect. No u natural 
ability " to fulfill a volition against strongest motive ever 
did or can exist except as a causeless effect, the self-con- 
tradictory consequent of a self-contradictory antecedent. 
If any one wishes to know how contradictory, self- 
*• Natural explosive, self-expelling from existence, un- 
the U conse S - thinkable and idiotic a thing necessitarianism 
■SfSeterm- holds that antecedent to be, let him read Ed- 
wards's famous demonstration against the 
self-determining power. And then let him mark that 
it is upon the power and act consequent to that contra- 
dictory, unthinkable, self-determining act as antecedent, 
that Edwards bases human responsibility. Now if such 



Sect. 2.] " MORAL INABILITY." 243 

be the nature and character of the antecedent, what 
must be the nature and character of the consequent — the 
necessitarian base of human responsibility ? It requires 
that power and act of " self-determination " which 
Edwards so scouts to bring " natural ability " into exist- 
ence. The whole, then, of that renowned demonstration 
against " self-determination " is an equally strong, and 
still stronger demonstration against "natural ability" — 
still stronger, for the self-determining act, with all its 
absurdities, must exist, in all its completeness and finish, 
before the " natural ability " can begin to take existence. 

There must exist in the agent the adequate causality, 
namely, the antecedent volition, or there cannot exist in 
him the effect, namely, the post-volitional, corporeal, or 
intellectual ability, that is, the " natural ability." And 
if there cannot be the "natural ability," that is, the 
causality for the post-volitional act, then there cannot 
exist the causality for the required post-volitional act. 
Necessitarianism, therefore, builds responsibility on a 
basis which she has previously utterly and overwhelm- 
ingly destroyed. She thereby overwhelms herself in 
her professed effort to furnish a power for obligated act. 
She sinks by her own self-contradictions back into her 
position, that an agent is* required to act without power 
for the act required ; that a cause is obligated to produce 
a causeless effect. 

Where there is no moral ability there can be no nat- 
ural ability. Where there is no power to will, there is 
no power to execute the behest of the will. That behest 
cannot be obeyed if it cannot exist. If there be no ade- 
quate power for the given volition, there is no volition 
to obey, and so no power to obey. An impossible voli- 
tion cannot be fulfilled. If a man through counter motive- 
force has no power to will otherwise than sin, No •; natural 
he has no sequent power to do otherwise than out " moral." 
sin. If a man has not the power to will right, he has not the 
power to act right. An agent can perform a bodily act 



244 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

only through his Will. And as it is a universal law that 
no agent can do what he cannot will, so it is a universal 
truth that where there is no power of will, there is no 
bodily power to fulfill the volition which cannot exist. 
What a man cannot will, that he cannot do. That is, 
where there is no moral ability, there can be no natural 
ability. Hence it is helplessly absurd to propose " nat- 
ural ability," in the absence of "moral ability," as a 
ground of responsibility. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

"MORAL ABILITY" AS TREATED BY EDWARDS. 

Clearly to state this notable necessitarian theory for 
the solution of responsibility for necessitated volition is 
to make bare its absurdity. It is tolerated only when 
wrapped in ambiguities of phrase. Edwards's definition, 
Edwards's for instance, of his moral inability or necessi- 
abmty." tarian volitional powerlessness, which he as- 
sumes to have overwhelmingly demonstrated to be 
produced by counter strongest motive-power, is when 
he comes (Part I, sec. 4) to meet the question of respons- 
ibility, in its case a signal instance of the " use of words 
to conceal thoughts." He does not tell us, as a definer 
should, what this necessitarian powerlessness or non- 
causality from strongest counter motive-force is ; but he 
professes to tell us in what it "consists;" and yet he 
really does not tell' us in what it " consists ;" he only tells 
us upon what conditions it exists, or by what it is caused. 
He tells us it "consists" (p. 45) "in either, 1. The want 
of inclination, or, 2. The strength of a contrary inclina- 
tion, or, 3. The want of sufficient motives in view to 
induce and excite the act of will, or, 4. The strength of 



Sect. 2.] EDWARDS ON "MORAL ABILITY." 245 

apparent motives to the contrary." The whole four of 
this amusing enumeration of particulars is embraced in 
the last ; namely, in the strongest counter motive-force. 
The quadruple consists of two couples ; the Hig ambiguoug 
two members of each couple are the same definition - 
thing ; and the two same things are finally one same 
thing; and that same thing is the strongest counter 
motive-force. The first couple is the " want of inclina- 
tion" to a given act or " strength of contrary inclination " 
against it; but these are the same thing; for strength 
of contrary inclination is want of favorable inclination, 
and where they amount to a moral inability the mind is 
under strongest counter motive-force. The second couple 
are one; namely, a mental condition of subjection to 
strongest counter motive-force. So that in all cases sub- 
jection to strongest counter motive-force is the condition, 
volitional powerlessness to the required act is the result. 
The act cannot take place for want of cause, or because 
strongest contrary causation makes it impossible. 

Edwards himself indeed reduces the four to " inclina- 
tion." , But "inclination" cannot in .any case be the 
inability itself, but the condition of the inability.* Incli- 
nation can reach the will only through or as motive; 
and the inability is the result of motive, namely, of the 
counter motive-force. The inclination is therefore one 
or two steps anterior to the inability, and not identical 
with it. 

Of the instances Edwards gives, a single one will furn- 
ish exemplification to our argument: "A wo- 
man of great honor and chastity may have a 
moral inability to prostitute herself to her slave." That 
is, according to necessitarianism, such is the permanent 
state and correlation of motives with her mind, that there 
is not in it the causality for the volition; so that the 
volition would be a true instance of causeless effect. If 
so, then we say that the external act would also be a 
* See p. 52. 



246 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

causeless effect. So that if there is no moral ability, there 
is no natural ability. If the absence of motive, or force 
of counter motive, render the volition impossible, the ab- 
sence of volition renders the external act impossible. 
What she cannot will, that she cannot do. It is simply 
the impossibility of an event without a cause; the uni- 
versal impossibility that a fixed train of causes and effects 
should run off the track. 

It is true that in the frame of the above-mentioned 
lady there may be corporeal strength for the act named, 
if the other requisite causalities were present. But 
that is only one constituent of the necessary adequate 
Part of the power.* It is, as is elsewhere shown, only 
power. a p 0wer { n £h e sense of a part of the power; 
it is not the underlying adequate power, sufficient for 
the effect, of which alone the requisition for responsibility 
can take cognizance. The act is not responsibly possible 
without that totality of causal constituents requisite for 
its existence. 

Into this so-called moral necessity or moral inability, 
by which this lady is powerless to the named volition, 
there must not be incautiously infused any infinitesimal 
particle of Arminian contingence. Necessitarianly speak- 
ing, it is as fixed as the motion of the planets in their 
orbits, when all the forces of attraction and repulsion are 
in their well-adjusted play. It is fixed by that profess- 
edly demonstrated absurdity of a self-determining power, 
or power of diverse choice, than which no mathematical 
necessity, no necessity of the divine self-existence can,* 
according to necessitarianism, be more fixed. Edwards, 
indeed, graciously tells us that volitional or "moral ne- 
cessity may be as absolute as natural necessity ;" that is, 
as physical or mathematical necessity. But there is no 
" may be" about it. All necessity is absolute and equally 
No tight and absolute. There can be no tight and loose 
s uies. " necessities. Necessity, if necessity, is perfect, 
*Seep. 51. 



Sect. 2. J EDWARDS ON "MORAL ABILITY." 247 

and has no degrees. It is the non-existence of adequate 
power to be otherwise, and non-existence cannot be grad- 
uated. There can be no fractions of nothing. Moral, 
that is, volitional necessity, physical necessity, (with all 
its sub-classes of mechanical necessity, chemical neces- 
sity, magnetic necessity, electric necessity, etc.,) and 
mathematical necessity, differ only in the termini con- 
nected not in the absoluteness and fixedness of the con- 
nection. Certainly if any other necessity is a soft neces- 
sity, this volitional necessity, according to Edwards, with 
his demonstrated infinities of infinities of absurdity, even 
in the conception of a diverse or self-determining power, 
is quite as absolute as the most absolute in the catalogue. 
And it is by that so-called necessity that the lady in ques- 
tion has no power either moral or natural for the wick- 
edness named. 

We have remarked that much of the necessitarian lan- 
guage on this subject seems used, unconsciously, we pre- 
sume, to conceal thought. We now say that the very 
terminology is false and deceptive. The terms Bad nomen . 
moral and natural as thus applied to ability clature - 
and inability convey, especially to the popular mind, false 
ideas, and are among the misleading ambiguities that 
should be banished from any metaphysical or theological 
nomenclature that aims at precision. 

This moral inability, so-called, is in the Will ; it is there- 
fore a volitional inability, powerlessness, or non-causal- 
ity. Natural ability is made to cover the whole field of 
our nature outside the Will; it is therefore an extravoli- 
tional or post-volitional ability. 

The apology framed by Edwards for these terms may 
excuse the user, but does not authorize the Bad excuse 
use. He admits that his moral is as truly forlt ' 
natural as his natural; and his natural he might 
admit to be as truly moral as his moral. But he tells 
us that nature being observed to be "in a settled 
course," " the word nature is often used in opposition to 



248 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

choice." But that is a very untrue statement. The 
word " nature " is no ordinary antithesis to " choice." 
God and nature, man and nature, grace and nature, are 
normal antitheses, but not choice and nature.* And 
what aggravates the falsity of this antithesis is the fact 
that the term nature, as used in this terminology, is 
made to embrace with external nature man himself — 
except his Will. It is the Will versus human and 
universal nature. That is, every other part of man 
is nature ; is of a piece with external nature ; but 
the Will is not natural, it is no part of even man's 
nature ! 

These terms, natural and moral, as thus used, are no 
Terms "nat- exclusive antithesis; that is, they do not ex- 
morai." elude each other. Many things are both moral 
and natural. Why should natural be opposed to Will 
when the Will is as natural a power as the intellect or 
the corporeal strength? The volitions are as truly natu- 
ral as a*hy bodily act. The Will is a natural part of the 
human soul. The ability or inability of the Will is a 
natural ability or inability. There is no faculty more 
natural than the Will, or that stands above it, or anti- 
thetical to it, as more eminently natural. On the other 
hand, to make moral=volitional is absurd ; for many acts 
of the Will belong not to the sphere of morals. They 
are not moral or ethical acts, and therefore they exert no 
moral ability ; and so again the power to will is not a 
moral but a natural ability. A large share of our voli- 
tions are wholly unethical. So that this volitional abili- 
ty, unless conferred by supernatural grace, is always most 
truly a natural ability. 

This misuse of terms infringes upon and tends to sup- 
Bad use ex- plant their legitimate application to their 

pels right r . .„ f r f . 

use. proper signincates. Ihere is a proper natural 

* Perhaps Dr. Bushnell's Natural and Supernatural contains an at- 
tempt to inaugurate this antithesis. But his theory identifies choice, not 
as moral, but as supernatural. 



Sect. 2.] EDWARDS ON "MORAL ABILITY." 249 

ability, moral ability, and gracious ability, to which 
these terms should be exclusively applied. 

Natural ability or abilities include all the abilities or 
powers with which a man is born or into which he grows. 
Natural is hereby often antithetical to acquired. The 
term ability includes capabilities of body or mind ; of 
mind including intellect, Will, or moral sense. 

Moral ability, being a species under natural ability, is 
every power of body or mind viewed as capable of being 
exerted for a moral or immoral purpose. 

Gracious ability is an ability, whether of body or 
soul, conferred by divine goodness over and above the 
abilities possessed by man by nature, that is, as a born 
and growing creature. 

Language, we repeat, may be so used as to conceal 
thought, and this may be done with great unconscious 
skill. Edwards, after having demonstrated positively, in 
behalf of the doctrine of necessity, the non-existence of 
power of volition against strongest motive-force, having 
named this no-power moral inability, next proceeds in 
behalf of the demands of responsibility to de- Edwards » a 
clare that this moral inability is no inability at denial 
all! This denial is in fact nominal and of the word, 
but is so phrased as to seem real and of the thing. There- 
by necessity is really saved, and responsibility 
is saved in words ; for while a no-power is 
demonstrated, an inability of some sort may be denied, 
as well as some sort of ability be affirmed. 

The word inability* he says, more properly belongs 

* " The word inability is used in a sense very diverse from its original 
import. The word signifies only a natural inability, in the proper use 
of it ; and is applied to such cases only wherein a present Will or in- 
clination to the thing, with respect to which a person is said to be un- 
able, is supposed. It cannot be truly said, according to the ordinary 
use of language, that a malicious man, let him be never so malicious, 
cannot hold his hand from striking, or that he is not able to show his 
neighbor kindness ; or that a drunkard, let his appetite be never so 
strong, cannot keep the cup from his mouth." 



250 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

not to the Will, but to the sequent powers of fulfilling the 
Will's command. There is no verbally proper inability 
in the ruffian's Will to withhold the ruffianly blow, or 
in the drunkard's Will to reject his cups. 

To this we reply, 1. Whether " the word inability " be 
the proper term to designate the powerlessness or non- 
Questionof causality in the Will to volitionate counter 
fact. strongest motive or not, is irrelevant to the 

case ; the only question being whether such powerless- 
ness be fact. And as it is the whole purpose of the ne- 
cessitarian argument to prove that it is fact, it is the 
same as the question whether necessitarianism is true. 
If necessitarianism be true, then such powerlessness is 
fact. Blocked by counter motive-force, the ruffian's Will 
and hand are equally powerless for the blow, the drunk- 
ard's for the cup. As the entire body of Edwards's ar- 
gument, if it proves anything, proves it true, it is alto- 
gether irrelevant for him to state that a particular word 
is not the right name to call it by. The applicability of 
a particular word has nothing to do with the question of 
the real existence of the fact that this necessitarian pow- 
erlessness really exists, and is the negation of all basis for 
just responsibility. Volitionally and muscularly power- 
less, no agent could be required to act or not act. The term 
inability, at any rate, is so far suitable and pertinent as 
that it calls up the actual fact as it is asserted by necessita- 
rians to exist ; and being by them selected it is very incon- 
sistent in them to criticise it ; and it is palpably deceptive 
to so repudiate the word as to seem to deny the thing, 

2. Either there is this powerlessness to will, and so to 
Hither coun- fulfill volition counter strongest motive-force, or 
^erpow there is not. If there is not such powerlessness 
against such force, then there is a true and real adequate 
power which may be exerted of volition counter strong- 
est motive ; that is, there is that famous " self-determin- 
ing power " so scouted by necessitarians ; that " power 
of contrary choice " which is the contradictory and over* 



Sect. 2.] EDWARDS ON "MORAL ABILITY." 251 

throw of volitional necessitarianism ; and then Arminian 
freedomism is true, and all the demonstrations of Edwards 
roll up into vanishing vapor. It is to demonstrate this 
point, namely, that there is not the adequate power in 
Will to choose counter strongest motive-force that Ed- 
wards wrote his book. That is the very doctrine of Ne- 
cessity. But if there be, according to necessity, that 
demonstrated powerlessness and non-causality against mo- 
tive-force, then let the necessitarian stand to it. Let 
there be no wordy legerdemain, no verbal denials that 
there is an inability in the Will because " the word " in- 
ability, " in the proper sense of it," is applicable solely to 
the sequents of Will, which denials are accepted by the 
unwary as equivalent to an affirmation that there is a 
power in the Will, and consequently in the sequents of 
Will, which is ample base for responsibility. 

But Edwards next proceeds to maintain that the terms 
power and ability are here inapplicable, because not 
properly applied to will or choice, but to the powers and 
actions sequent to choice ; since a thing is, in Edwards's 

t i i t i • • r» i next posi- 

strict language, held to be in power, it the post- tion. 
volitional capabilities are able to fulfill the Will or volition 
if present.* 

So far as this argument is merely verbal, dealing with 
the application of a term, it has no validity in determin- 
ing the reality of the irresponsible powerless- Sofa]Pasr e a i 
ness. So far as it is a real argument, it is a erroneous - 
most unconscionable statement that power and no power 
are attributable to the post-volitional powers alone, and 

* " In the strictest propriety of speech, a man has a thing in his power 
if he has it in his choice or at his election ; and a man cannot be truly 
said to be unable to do a thing when he can do it if he will. It is im- 
properly said that a person cannot do those external actions which are 
dependent on the act of the Will, and which would be easily performed 
if the act of the Will were present." (Edwards, p. 48.) This and the 
quotations which follow in this chapter are successive sentences in the 
closing passages of Edwards's chapter on "Moral Inability." 



252 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

not to Will ; and that they are not predicable of the agent 
as inhering in the Will. We affirm, in contradiction, that 
a man's will may truly be said to be without power, or 
unable, or under inability to choose; it is rightly said 
that he cannot choose for want of power to will, and 
that he cannot do, or move, or corporeally act, because 
he cannot choose to so do, move, or act. 

1. If human language affirms that " a man has a thing 

Men's phrase, m n * s P ower *£ ne nas & m his choice," common 
Armiman. i an g ua g e i s herein Arminian. Human language 
does hold that " a man has a thing in his power if he has 
it in his choice;" but human language does not affirm 
that he has it in his power by having it in his choice, if 
the choice itself be a causeless effect, and so out of his 
power. What Edwards does is to clap necessity upon 
will, and then appeal to our natural, spontaneous con- 
sciousness (which is Arminian) that our free will is free 
will in proof that a necessitated will is free will. It 
holds a thing in his choice to be in his power, because it 
holds his choice to be in his power. The external act is 
in the power of his choice, and the choice is in the power 
of the man ; therefore, the external act is in the power 
of the man. Hence the human consciousness is herein 
Arminian. And if the thing be commended by the 
weaker motive, and still be in power, then common lan- 
guage and common sense hold that the choice for a 
weaker motive is in power. 2. But a thing is not in the 
choice or at the election of a man, when to choose that 
thing would be an effect without a cause, or when the 
Ataman's ver y principle of causation itself secures an- 
cnoice. other choice, and so another act, and therefore 
annihilates all power or possibility to this. For certainly 
nothing can be in the power of an impossible choice; 
and a choice that would be a causeless effect must be an 
impossible choice. 3. It is, in spite of Edwards, very 
properly said "that a person cannot perform those ex- 
ternal actions which would be easily performed if the 



Sect. 2.] EDWARDS ON "MORAL ABILITY." 253 

act of the Will were present," provided there exists no 
power for the act of the Will, that is, provided that act 
of the Will were a causeless effect. 4. If some other 
causation than the influence of counter highest motive, 
as mesmerism or fascination, were to exclude the power 
to a volition, it would be immediately seen and confessed 
that there would be no power in the corporiety to per- 
form the unwilled act. Of a man without power to 
choose a thing — as against counter strongest motive- 
force — it is not true that "he has it in his Nota this 
choice or at his election;" for an impassable choice - 
gulf lies between him and that choice. It is certainly 
most true and properly said "that a person cannot do 
those external actions which are dependent on the act 
of the Will, and which would be easily performed if the 
act of the Will were present," whenever there is in the 
person, from strongest counter motive-force, no adequate 
power to will. For the sequent acts of the volition can- 
not be performed without both the power of volition, 
and the exertion of that power. The power of volition 
is a causal condition, requisite in order to the existence 
of the power of post-volitional action ; and when the con- 
dition cannot exist the result cannot exist. What a 
man cannot will, that he cannot do. Where there is no 
power of Will, there is no power of action consequent 
upon Will. 

Separating our nature thus into two factors, the Will 
and the sequent Post-volitionality, it is plain Two factors: 

,, , . , n i i • -. Will, and its 

that in each factor there must be its own ade- executor. 
quate power for its required action, and there must be 
co-operative exertion of each power for the composite 
action of both. There must be power in the Will for 
volition; there must be power, also,. in the Post-volition- 
ality, whether body or mind, for obedient execution of 
the volition. It is surely untrue to say that the power 
of each is not requisite for the composite action of both. 
Taking stand-point, indeed, with either one of the above 



254 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

two factors, and tacitly assuming its adequate power, a 
man may say that all the ability is to be required solely 
in the other factor* Taking thus stand-point with the 

Will, a man may say that the thing is in his power if he 
can post-volitionally fulfill the Will's behest — just because 
he tacitly assumes his own power of Will. And as men 
are practically most obliged to discuss what they can ex 
And two ternally accomplish, assuming their power of 

stand-points, jp^ g0 the y ta j kj w ithout express reference 
to Will, as if the corporeal or post-volitional thing were 
in their power if there is corporeal or post-volitional abil- 
ity to perform it. But they surely do not mean that, 
without any volition or power of volition, their corporiety 
is able to start up of itself and perform the thing un- 
willed. They do not deny the requisiteness of the power 
of Will ; they assume that power to exist, ready for ac- 
tion in the proper conditions ; and that all that is now 
wanting for full composite action is corporeal power. 
For taking the contrary stand-point, with the corporiety, 
and assuming its adequate conditionality, the same man 

True "abiii- ma y sa y tnat tne tmn g would be in his power, 
ty" in win. p rov id e( i he had the ability to will it. And 
from that stand-point it is right to say " that a person 
cannot perform those external actions" — for want of a 
power of Will — " which are dependent on the Will, and 
which would easily be performed if the act of the Will 
were present." A man can truly " be said to be unable 
to do a thing" — for want of a power of Will — " when he 
can do it if he will." For what a man cannot will, that 
he cannot do. What a man cannot will, he can neither 
will nor do. The terms can and cannot, able and unable, 
ability and inability, are thus with quite sufficient accu- 
racy applicable to either, and the idea conveyed is not 
the less true because the phraseology is not normal/ but 
whether the term be or be not verbally accurate, there 
is affirmed by necessitarianism a powerlessness in the 
* See p. 54. 



Sect. 2. J EDWARDS OK "MORAL ABILITY." 255 

Will for volition against strongest motive-force, to which 
the necessitarian has affixed the term moral inability, 
which negatives all basis of human responsibility. 

And note, it is in the absence of the requisite causal 
conditions necessary to the result, (namely, of power of 
Will,) that necessitarianism requires the result Natural abii- 
to be possible. Its defender cannot say that piy'thewant 
he only asserts or requires the resultant power oft emoraL 
or possibility under assumption that the causal condi- 
tions all do exist and are present. He is assigning nat- 
ural ability as a ground of responsibility in the absence 
of moral ability. That is, he is assigning the power of 
post-volitional corporeal action in the absence of power 
to will that action. Its very object is to find ground of 
responsibility in an admitted case of non-existence of 
power to will, and finds it in the power of external 
action in that same instance of no-power to Will. We 
are held to be obligated to perform an act, because, for- 
sooth, we possess power to perform it without power 
to will. That is, we are obligated to bring into exist- 
ence a result for which the requisite conditions cannot 
exist. That is, we are obligated to produce an effect 
without cause, a deed without the power of doing. 

And inasmuch as this is the effort of necessitarianism 
to furnish a power adequate to responsibility, no basis of 
it admits for the time being that adequate ty. 
power is requisite to responsibility. And yet it offers no 
power that exists. It offers only the impossible power 
of doing a thing without the power to will it ; of effect- 
ing a thing without a causal power ; of producing a re- 
sult without the existence of the necessary conditions. 
That is, necessitarianism acknowledges the requisiteness 
of the power but furnishes none. 

A command, let us say, comes to me from God requir- 
ing a volition contrary to the strongest motive-force. 
But I have no power of contrary choice ; contrary, that is, 
to the highest motive-force. Now what adequate power 



256 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

have I to obey this divine command ? I have no power 
in the Will, for that would be the condemned power of 
contrary choice. I have no such power in the body, for 
No. power in the body cannot move where there is no voli- 
body. tion, much more where there is no power of 

volition. There is no power, then, either in soul or body, 
by which I can obey the divine command. And every 
case of actual sin is a case of this kind. Every case of 
actual sin is a case in which counter motive-force, that , 
is, counter causation, excludes, first from Will and then 
from body, all adequate power to obey the divine com- 
mand. Sin always occurs, a thing the sinner cannot help. 
God's command is always disobeyed because it cannot 
be obeyed. No agent ever sinned who had, in body or 
in soul, the adequate power not to sin. Men are always 
damned by God for not doing what they cannot do ; or 

smcannotbe for doin g what the 7 cannot help doing. God 
helped. g rg |. p Utg j n mo tion those causations that cut 

off the volitional power of obedience, and then damns a 
man to all eternity for disobedience ! All this " to the 
praise of his glorious justice !" 

Though our Calvinistic friends say that we have no 
moral ability, that is, ability in the Will, for the right vo- 
lition, yet — something supplies the want of it — namely, 
natural ability, that is, ability in the body. But, alas ! 
just when the moral ability is wanting, always and ever, 
the ability in the body, which is to supply the deficit, is 
An evasive wanting too. A most villainous ability surely 
power. j g t k at w } 1 i c | 1 always, and for ever and. ever, 
steps out just when it is wanted! It not only does not 
stay, but it does not be. It steps not only out of reach 
but out of existence. What a man- cannot will, that he 
cannot do. That is, where there is no "moral ability" 
there is no " natural ability." 

Edwards adds, " It is still more improperly said that he 
is unable to exert the acts of the Will themselves ; be- 
cause it is more evidently false with respect to these 



Sect. 2.J EDWARDS ON "MORAL ABILITY." 257 

that he cannot if he will." But there is no If he wiu 
" if" allowable in the case ; the case being that waL 
of counter causation excluding both the u Will " and the 
u if." Edwards, in his chapter on the self-determining 
power, has professedly demonstrated that the very con- 
ception of this " he will " with the " if" before it, is 
infinitely and infinitely absurd. And the conditional " if 
he will" being absurd, any consequent power of Will as 
basis of responsibility is absurd. It is not " improperly 
said that he is unable to exert the acts of the Will them- 
selves," because the very "if" which supposes them pos- 
sible in the case is absurd. A stone may start up and 
fly, if it will ; but the very if being absurd, the conse- 
quent is equally absurd. 

Last comes the cap to the whole climax of absurdity. 
" There are," Edwards concludes, "faculties of mind and 
capacity of nature, and everything else sufficient, but a 
disposition : nothing is wanting but a Will." 

Now, in every sense of this triply ambiguous dictum, it 
is, on his own necessitarian hypothesis, vitally and fatally 
false. If the wanting "Will" means the voli- The triple 
tional faculty of the man, the constituent power untruth. 
to will in the human soul, no man, not even the vilest sinner, 
wants that integral part of the man. If it means the dis- 
position, or temper of heart, or " inclination," not only is 
that wanting, but, what is very much more, and the very 
gist of the difficulty, the power to the " inclination," or 
temper, or disposition is wanting. If it means that the 
volition merely is wanting, that is as momentously un- 
true ; for it is the power to the volition that is wanting.* 

* It was to meet the moral demand for power in such case that the doc- 
trine of Invariable Sequence, discussed in a former chapter, was in- 
vented. Its maintainers "can preach moral ability" to will against 
strongest motive ! Alas ! it is by an absolute universal law an unexer- 
cisable power ; a power not in the possession of the agent ; no power in 
him at all. Such a power furnishes no escape from the argument of 
these chapters. 

11 



258 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

"MORAL ABILITY" AS HOMILETICALLY TREATED. 

The closing remark of the last chapter exhibits a radi- 
cal error running through all the necessitarian utterances 
want of act on this subject. It is the confounding the want 
of power. of the act with the want of the power of the act. 
It is the confounding of the absence of inclination or voli- 
tion with the absence of the power of or for the inclination 
or volition. And the reason, or rather motive, of this per- 
petually cherished fallacy is obvious. The ignoring the 
fact that not the act but the power of the act is wanting 
evades the negation of responsibility. The mere act 
may be wanting and the responsibility remains. The 
power of the act is wanting, and responsibility disap- 
pears. But the necessitarian is unjustifiable in thus sub- 
stituting the want of mere act for the want of the power. 
It is founding responsibility upon a falsification of facts. 
If the strongest motive-force must prevail, as every efficient 
cause must produce its effect, if the self-determining power 
be infinitely absurd as in any physical cause, if the 
power of contrary choice is inconceivable, if a choice 
counter strongest motive-force be an event without ade- 
quate causality, then there is a powerlessness, a non-caus- 
ality, of the Will to choose in the case just as absolute 
as in a physical agent to produce a causeless effect, and 
not the mere absence or withholding of the act of 
choice. 

The most melancholy point in these systematic mis- 
Preaching statements of fact is that they are introduced 
tions. by the preacher and practical pastor into his 

sermons and his dealings with men's souls. Thereby the 
minister of Christ becomes, unconsciously and uninten- 



Sect. 2.] " MORAL ABILITY." 259 

tionally, we gladly admit, an equivocator and a sophist. 
We wish herein to indicate the sad mismanagement by 
which the cause of God and righteousness is betrayed, 
and the best of the argument yielded to impenitence and 
sin, in order to clear the way of truth to the consciences 
of men, and to render the labors of such a minister more 
successful in subduing their hearts to the obedience of 
the faith. 

To exemplify these equivocations we take some pass- 
ages from a sermon of the excellent Dr. Wardlaw, (an 
extract from which, six pages in length, we find in 
"Rutherford on Election," pp. 199-205,) in which the 
fallacy appears in its various forms. 

1. Substituting the want of the act for the want of 
power /br the act. 

" To say you would believe if you could is not only 
not true, it is the precise opposite of truth. The plain 
truth is that you could believe if you would; there being 
no one thing whatever that prevents you from believing 
but the want of Will; nothing between you and pardon 
but the want of Will to have it in God's way — that is, 
freely, and in connection with holiness, with newness of 
life." 

We find here the same ambiguous use of the word 
Will for volition, as in Edwards ; and the same want of act 

, . . . , for want of 

assumption that what is wanting is the mere power. 
act, instead of the power of the act. Yet so long as the 
counter motive was strongest, that is, so long as the 
adverse volition really existed, Dr. W., as a necessita- 
rian, was obliged to admit that the power did not exist. 
He was, therefore, requiring an impossible act, a cause- 
less effect, which his audience could deny to be just. 
The advocate for God is a sophist, and his reasoning a 
fallacy. The best of the argument is with the sinner. 

2. Confounding the faculties of the mind with the spe- 
cific power in the faculty for the required particular act.* 

* See p. 51. 



260 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

" You have all the natural faculties and powers that are 
necessary to constitute a ground of accountableness. 
You have the natural powers required for considering, 
understanding, believing, choosing, loving and hating, 
speaking and acting — and moreover, for asking." 

The sinner may have all these faculties, including that 
of " choosing ;" but while counter motive is strongest he 
want of has not the adequate power in the faculty for 
faculty. the required choice. There is a faculty of 
choice, but it has not the specific power to choose the 
thing. If adequate power must underlie obligation 
there is no obligation to the required act. The best 
of the argument is again with the sinner. The cause of 
God is mismanaged and betrayed. 

3. The identification of power and no-power, ability 
and inability, with inclinations, dispositions, and their 
opposites. 

" So far from being unable, in any sense that palliates 
your unbelief and impenitence — your inability, rightly 
identification interpreted, resolves itself into the strongest 
with power, mode of expressing your culpability and guilt. 
For what does the word mean? Simply the strength of 
your antipathy to God and to goodness. Your inabil- 
ity to believe is only another phrase for your aversion 
to the truth of God. Your inability to ' repent and turn 
to God, and do works meet for repentance, 5 what else 
is it, less or more, than your fondness for the service of 
sin and of the world, and your unwillingness to relinquish 
it ? What is it but that you cannot give up the world — 
you cannot renounce your favorite sins." 

Here inability is identified with an "antipathy," an 
" aversion," and a "fondness." Now these "inclinations" 
are no power or want of power ; for power is an attribute, 
and these are subjects of an attribute.* Inclinations are 
the result of a want of power superinduced by strongest 
counter influence resistlessly producing the inclination. 
*Seep. 52. 



Sect. 2.] "INABILITY" IN ORDINARY PHRASE. 261 

They are also a cause of inability, or the absence of the 
conditions of ability, when they exclude power to a given 
volition. But they cannot be the inability itself. And 
as necessitated, and then necessitatedly necessitating, 
they are equally irresponsible. 

But Dr. W. here identifies this necessitated inability 
with "culpability and guilt." He could do this only 
on the assumption that power to a different course was 
requisite for responsibility for their actual course. He 
must deny that they are irresponsible for the absolutely 
inevitable. And thus his gospel is at issue with the sur- 
est moral intimations of the human soul. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

"MORAL INABILITY" EXPRESSED IN ORDINARY 
PHRASE. 

This imaginary "moral inability" has been found 
also in one of the ordinary modes of expression in 
which we at first view seem to affirm a mere unwill- 
ingness or opposition of Will by terms that Popular 
signify want of ability. Instead of instituting P hraseol °ey. 
an analysis to ascertain the psychological solution 
of this fact, these theologians have grounded upon 
it that most unscientific identification of inclination 
with power which we have exposed in the preceding 
chapters. 

We give the grounds of this verbal argument in the 
words of Dr. Pond, from his article in the Bibliotheca 
Sacra on Hopkinsianism : "We find it in all books, and 
in reference to all sorts of subjects ; so that those who 
are inclined to repudiate it find it next to impossible to 
succeed. The \in 6vva\iai of the Greek, the non possum of 



262 NECESSITAEIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part H, 

the Latin, the ne puis pas of the French, the little cannot 
of the English, are continually used in two different senses : 
the one what is called a moral, the other a natural abil- 
ity; the one a mere inability of disposition and 'Will, 
the other an inability extraneous to the Will,* and over 
which the Will has no power. We ask a pious friend to 
lift for us a thousand pounds. He replies, " I cannot do 
it." We ask him to go to some place of amusement on 
the Sabbath ; he replies again, " I cannot do it." In 
footh cases he pleads, and pleads properly, (as terms 
are used,) an inability. But who does not see that 
here are two kinds of inability? Our friend has no 
natural power to lift a thousand pounds. He could 
not do it if he would. He has the natural power to 
comply with the other request, and only lacks the will- 
ing mind.\ 

" Joseph's brethren hated him, and could not speak 
peaceably unto him." (Gen. xxxvii, 4.) " We cannot 
but speak the things which we have seen and heard." 
(Acts iv, 20.) " I have married a wife, and therefore I 
cannot come." (Luke xiv, 20.) In each of these cases 
there is obviously no lack of capacity, of natural power. 
The inability is wholly of a moral nature, the inability 
of Will. 

" Natural ability has respect to the natural capacity or 
faculties of an individual. J Moral ability has respect to 
the disposition, the concurrent Will, or (which is the 

* Suppose, then, the command be to will right, and we have only this 
natural ability, a extraneous to the Will." Are we morally obligated 
without any power intrinsic to the Will to will right f If yes, then, con- 
trary to what is said below, we are obligated to do what we have no 
power to do; for certainly a power "extraneous to the Will" is not a 
power to will. If no, then no volitional sin was ever committed; for 
all such supposed sins are committed under strongest motive, and with- 
out power to will otherwise. And if no volitional sin, then no sin at 
all, for Dr. P. makes sin consist in volitional " action." 

+ Does he not, Dr. Pond, according to necessitarianism, lack the 
power of the willing mind ? 

% Is not the Will a natural faculty ? 



Sect. 2.] "ABILITY" IN ORDINARY PHRASE. 263 

same) to the predominant motive, with which the Will 
always coincides. 

"Besides, this kind of ability* constitutes the ground 
and the measure of our moral obligation. We are mor- 
ally bound to do, and God justly holds us responsible for 
doing all the good which he has given us the natural 
ability, the capacity to accomplish. As God has given 
us our faculties, he may justly require us to exercise them 
all in his service. And this is all that he can justly 
require. Should he command us to exert p>owers which 
he has not given us ?"\ 

Now upon a little analysis it will perhaps be found that 
this so-called "moral cannot" does express a true inability, 
a natural inability, a physical and metaphysical impossibil- 
ity, and as perfectly absolute a powerlessness or non- 
causality as nature or thought affords. All Its ^0^^. 
the cases that can be quoted belong to the contiadTc- * 
impossibility that both sides of a contradiction lon ' 
should at the same instant be true, the impossibility aris- 
ing from incompatibility. In all cases if one side of a 
contradiction be assumed as true — whether it actually be 
true or not, whether the truth be real or conceptual, re- 
movable or irremovable — the opposite side of the contra- 
diction is pronounced impossible. And even if the contra- 
diction be but a pretended one, still it is a natural, logical, 
and metaphysical impossibility, which is intended. If a 
certain course be held as so fixed that it cannot even be 
discussed or held questionable, then surely the opposite 
course is excluded as incompatible and so impossible. If 
I assume it as a settled point, not to be called in question 
or at all considered, that I am to remain in my study and 
write a chapter of manuscript, I shall tell my friend who 
invites me to a pleasure-ride that " I cannot go." For 

* And why not the other kind too ? 

t If, then, he has never given us power to will right against strongest 
strongest motive, can he "justly require " us to will right against 
strongest motive ? Must not the strength of the motive furnish the 
measure and limit of the obligation ? 



264 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

Cannot by ^ assume it a fixed fact (however volitionally 
assumption. rem0 y a ]3i e it may really be) that my person 
is to be in my chair ; how then can it be in the carriage ? 
or how can I will that it be so ? By such a reply the 
refusal is based upon an assumption presupposed (wheth- 
er validly or not) to be immovable, and the acceptance 
is excluded as an incompatibility, and so an impossibility, 
for which there is an "inability." u Ye cannot," says 
the Saviour, "serve God and Mammon." That is, as- 
is a cannot suming that we serve God, then we cannot 

of incom- __. . 

patibiiity. serve Mammon ; and assuming that we serve 
Mammon, we then cannot serve God. "Ye cannot" 
says the apostle, " drink of the cup of the Lord and the 
cup of devils." And, therefore, whichever they should 
do, by the law of contradiction they could not do the 
other. 

Thus assuming that God has laid down unchangingly 
the laws of nature, we say with reverence that he cannot 
God's "can- res tore our departed friend to life, or cause a 
not." child to be a man in a day. We mean not that 

he cannot violate or change these laws. But tacitly as- 
suming that he will not, then either of those things are 
impossible, because contradictory and incompatible. So 
assuming the eternally unchanging truthfulness of God 
as beyond all question, we affirm that he cannot lie. 

The assumed side of the contradiction may be a false- 
hood, a removable state of things, or an immutable fact 
and necessity. The condition to the impossibility or 
"inability" is the presupposed (not always the actual) 
immovability of the assumption; the impossibility lies 
in the incompatibility between the assumption and its 
opposite. 

Thus God commanded Samuel to go and anoint David 
king ; the prophet replied in his unbelief, " How can I 
go ? If Saul hear it he will kill me." The prophet's 
double assumption that Saul would kill him, and that he 
was bound to keep out of danger, was false ; but never- 



Sect. 2.] "ABILITY" IN ORDINARY PHRASE. 265 

theless, being silently assumed as true and settled, his 
going is impossible. 

" How can ye believe," says the Saviour to the Jews, 
"who receive honor of one another, and seek not the 
honor that cometh from God ?" The assumed and real 
condition of the mind of the Jews was voluntary and 
removable. But their tempers remaining as they were, 
and presupposed as not to be removed, the two things 
were incompatible. 

A circle, presupposing that that figure remain un- 
changed, cannot be an angle. Here both a contingent 
and a necessary matter is assumed, namely, the un- 
changed self-sameness of the circle and its properties, 
and the impossibility lies in the incompatibility of the 
two figures. But the impossibility is in itself no more 
absolute than in the previously adduced examples. 

So the texts quoted by Dr. Pond. Joseph's brethren 
" hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him." 
Their hatred being presupposed as complete and firmly 
settled, is incompatible with peaceful speech. Perhaps 
they could have renounced their hatred ; perhaps it was 
a psychological and a natural impossibility to do so ; for 
we cannot always by any volitional or other natural 
power control our feelings or change our tempers. It 
may therefore have been an instance of the assumption 
of an unchangeable fact. But at any rate the sacred 
writer gives us a clear idea of its all-controlling intensity, 
by assuring us that it was utterly incompatible with a 
peaceful word. " We cannot but speak the things which 
we have heard." The not speaking and the fixed feelings 
prompted by the things heard were incompatible, per- 
haps intrinsically and irremovably, and perhaps not. " I 
have married a wife and cannot come." The presupposed 
and settled plans, purposes, feelings, and arrangements 
attending the matrimony, one or all, by incompatibility 
excluded his coming. In all these cases, and in every 
case of this class, one side being assumed as settled and 



266 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

of course, for the other side there is a " lack of capacity, 
or natural power." And so of the supposed extra-scrip- 
tural instances of Dr. P. To lift a thousand pounds, and 
to break the Sabbath, the former by reality and the latter 
by assumption of the contradictory, were equally and- 
equally naturally, physically, and metaphysically impossi- 
ble. The latter was an impossibility by the law of con- 
tradiction, perfectly absolute in itself, though apparently 
not absolute because the assumption was of a removable 
fact. Equally natural and equally absolute, and on the 
same principle, is the impossibility of the leap from the 
precipice. 

This class of linguistic expressions then does not indi- 
cate that inclination is itself power, or that there is any 
propriety in the distinction proposed between moral and 
natural power. Universally they indicate a metaphysical 
and logical impossibility existing between a presupposi- 
tion and its co?itradictory. 



Sect. 8.] FOREKNOWLEDGE AND PREDESTINATION. 267 



SECTION THIRD. 
THE THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 



CHAPTER I. 

FOREKNOWLEDGE AND PREDESTINATION. 

Intellect and will we are obliged to recognize in the 
divine Personality as truly as in the human. Foreknowl . 
They -are there as distinct as God's attributes for^d¥ d 
of omniscience and omnipotence. And as fore- natlon - 
knowledge belongs to the intellect, and foreordination to 
the Will, the former being perception and the latter voli- 
tion, there can be no excuse for confounding the two or 
not recognizing their wide diversity. And as intelligent 
volition, or indeed any real volition, is preceded by per- 
ception, so God's foreordination must be viewed as being 
preceded by foreknowledge. Besides, as God's fore- 
knowledge, being but a particular phase of his omnis- 
cience, is an attribute, and is of the essential attributes 
of the divine nature, so it must in the order of nature, 
even if both are eternal, precede foreordination, which, 
being a volition, is an act. Even in the depths of an ante- 
cedent eternity, as an eternal cause must be held in logical 
order to be antecedent to its eternal effect, so Their order of 
God, as omniscient and therefore as foreknow- mt?me en 
ing, must be held to be antecedent to God, as acting, 
willing, and foreordaining. It is indeed impossible to 
conceive the Deity as acting or willing in unintelligent 
darkness. The knowledge of all futuritions, possible or 



268 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

actual, even of his own divine actions, must in the order 
of nature precede the actions themselves. And as we 
purpose to show that the freedom of an act is not affected 
by its being the object of foreknowledge, so the freedom 
of the divine predeterminations is not restricted by. the 
previous existence of the divine prescience of them. 

In foreordination or predestination the divine volition 
is logically antecedent, and the event predestinated is 
Their compar- immediately or mediately consequent. Pre- 

ative relation _ _ ; 

to the event, destination is as an antecedent stereotype, to 
which the consequent total complex of events must con- 
form. The consequent complex must conform to the 
antecedent stereotype; not, as in foreknowledge, the 
stereotype to the complex. Foreknowledge takes shape 
from the fact, the fact takes shape from the predestina- 
tion. Predestination is the causative, logical, and chro- 
nological antecedent of the fact ; foreknowledge is the 
chronological antecedent, but logical and causational 
consequent of the fact. If the stereotype conforms to 
the complex, then the complex is foreknown first, and 
then willed; which as between foreknowledge and fore- 
ordination concedes the former. It supposes that God 
foresees man's sin and ratifies it. The future fact is first 
overlaid with foreknowledge, and then that foreknowl- 
edge is overlaid with predestination, and thereby with 
necessitation. It implies all the dependence of God upon 
man which predestinarians object against Arminianism. 
It incurs all the charge of making God the authorizer 
of sin, which can be truly made against any form of 
predestination. 

The distinction between "Causative and Permissive 
" Permissive decrees," if by the latter is signified simply 
decrees." God's volition to permit or non-prevent the 
free act of the free agent, is the Arminianism of Arminius 
himself. With it we have no controversy; for it ap- 
pears in the proper place to be the very doctrine main- 
tained in this treatise. But we may here note that by 



Sect. 3.] FOREKNOWLEDGE AND PREDESTINATION. 269 

the proposition that "God foreordains what- Event> t 

ever comes to pass," it is the event which is , j^Xrlo? 11 ' 

foreordained or decreed, and not its permission ; 

so that such foreordination cannot be a mere " permissive 

decree." 

Against the doctrine that foreknowledge precedes pre- 
determination the following is the argument.* "The 
foreknowledge of actual future events is not an ment f r 
essential attribute of God. We can conceive gf ec p?e e de- e 
of him as a perfect God without it. If he had g™^?*! 011 
not chosen to create a universe he would still knowledge - 
have been God. 1 But in that case there would have 
been no future events. 2 jFbreknowledge must be dis- 
tinguished from knowledge. The latter is an essential 
attribute of God, and extends to all possible existences ; 
but the former can extend only to things which will 
actually exist. 3 It must therefore first be determined 
that events will be, or there can be no foreknowledge of 
them. 4 They must be transferred from mere future 
possibilities, which are objects of God's knowledge, to 
future certainties, before they can become objects of his 
foreknowledge. But this transfer can be made only by 
the Will of God. 5 He alone can determine whether a 
thing that may be will be. His determining purpose 
must precede and be the ground of its certainty. 6 
Therefore God as decreeing must be conceived of as 
preceding God as foreknowing, and hence it is perfect- 
ly legitimate to reason from his foreknowledge to his 
decrees." 7 

The fallacies, as we esteem them, are here so numer- 
ous that we mark them in the quotation with numerals 
for successive correction under corresponding numerals. 
1. God cannot be conceived "as perfect God" without a 
foreknowledge of all future possibilities and 
actualities. Whatever of the future is certain, 
reflects its certainty back into the essential, eternal om- 
* Eiske, Bib. Sac, April, 1862. 



270 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

niscience of God. If omniscience be an attribute of God, 
the knowledge of all futurition is an attribute of God ; 
and that is foreknowledge. 2. If God had produced no 
future events, then he would have eternally foreknown 
the absence of all future events. It is not the knowledge 
of future events exclusively, but the knowledge of all fu- 
turition, all that the future does or does not contain, 
which constitutes foreknowledge. Foreknowledge is 
omniscience comprehending the future. 3. Foreknowl- 
edge differs from knowledge just as much as a thing differs 
from itself. The knowledge of a future event or a future 
no-event is just as truly knowledge as the knowledge of 
the past or present. Omniscience includes all three. 
" Knoion unto God are all his works from the beginning." 
4. If " it must be first determined that events will be," 
then, as that determination is an "event," so that event 
mast be foreknown in the essential omniscience of God. 
And that comprehensive event being foreknown, all the 
events it comprehends must be foreknown. 5. And this 
" transfer," being an event, must be foreknown ; and it 
must, before that event, be foreknown into what " prob- 
abilities " and into what " certainties " the transfer is 
made. 6. The certainty of the " purpose " itself does in 
the order of nature precede the " purpose " whereby the 
" purpose " is foreknown in the essential omniscience of 
God, which, " in the order of nature," precedes all voli- 
tional act, even of God himself. That " certainty " is 
not antecedently grounded or caused by any previous 
act, since it consists in the pure futurition of the certain 
event, and has no ground except in the event of which 
the futurition is predicable. 7. If God's omniscient fore- 
sight of all that is or is not in the future is the effect of 
God's determination, then an attribute of God is created 
by an act of God. If God's foreknowledge depends on 
his determination, and must wait until after its exist- 
ence, then he can have no foreknowledge of his own acts, 
and must wait for present or after knowledge of them. 



Sect. 3.] FREE AGENCY AND FOREKNOWLEDGE. 271 

And, finally, if God can be " perfect God " without " the 
foreknowledge of actual future events," then he can be 
perfect God with an omniscience empty of facts. His 
omniscience, then, instead of being an actual knowledge 
of futuritions, would be only a capacity for knowing, 
and not the knowledge itself. From all which it follows 
that of all futuritions, whether events or no-events, 
whether necessitated facts or free acts, it is an essential 
attribute of God to possess an eternal knowledge. 



CHAPTER II. 

RECONCILIATION OF FREE AGENCY AND FORE- 
KNOWLEDGE. 

The advocates of predestination and necessity main- 
tain, with great show of logic, that free agency, as we 
hold it, is inconsistent with God's foreknowledge. A 
Unite agent, they maintain, cannot possess power to do 
otherwise than God foreknows he will do. Nor can any 
event be otherwise than God foreknows and so contra- 
dict his foreknowledge. We address our argument to 
this point. 

I. We may first remark that our view of free agency 
does not so much require in God a foreknowledge of a 
peculiar kind of event as a knowledge in him of a pe- 
culiar quality existent in the free agent. This is a 
point apparently much if not entirely overlooked by 
thinkers upon this subject. 

Power is a substantive quality intrinsic in the agent 
possessing it. It is a positive element in the Power a 
constitution of the being. To a knowing eye element. 
it may be perfectly cognizable. If any power be planted 
in an agent, God, who placed it there, must know it. 



272 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. (Tart H, 

And if that power be, as we shall assume to have proved, 
a power to do otherwise than the agent really does do, 
God may be conceived to know it and to know it in 
every specific instance. That is, God knows in every 
case that the agent who wills a certain way possessed 
the elemental power of choosing another way, or sev- 
eral elemental powers of choosing several other ways. 
God may, know the way in which the agent will act, 
and at the same time there may be seen by him in the 
same agent the substantive power of acting otherwise 
instead. The two facts, namely, that he will act thus^ 
Aiternativity and that there resides in him the power of 
to God. other action^ may be seen at the same time by 
God and be mutually consistent with each other. God's 
foreknowledge, therefore, of the volition which will be 
put forth is perfectly consistent with his knowledge of 
the agent's power of willing otherwise. That is, pre- 
science in God is perfectly consistent with freedom in 
the finite agent. 

Surely if an agent can will either one of several ways, 
God may know each one of those several ways ; arid if 
of those several ways there is one which the agent will 
will) God may know which that way is. His knowing 
the way which, of the several, the agent will choose, does 
not negative his knowing that the agent possessed pow- 
ers for either of the other ways. For all those powers 
are simply positive elements in the being of the agent, 
which God is certainly to be conceived as able to 
know. 

This view reduces the whole question to discussion of 
man's nature, or the proper analysis of the nature of a 
a point of f ree a g en ^. It becomes a discussion not of the 
Psychology, metaphysics of events in regard to their neces- 
sity or possibility, but of psychology or anthropology; 
or rather (what is of momentous consequence in the con- 
troversy) the psychological investigation and decision 
overrule and predetermine the metaphysical. If there 



Sect. 3.1 FKEE AGENCY AND FOREKNOWLEDGE. 278 

be, m the free agent, ascertainable by psychology, or re- 
quired by intuition, or supposably seen by the divine eye, 
the power of putting forth the volition with full power 
of alteriety, then God knows that power. And, then, 
God knows, or knows not, the agent's future acts. If he 
knows them not his foreknowledge does not extend to 
all free acts. If he does know them, then he knows the 
future act which will be, while there is full adequate 
power for it not to be. 

If these views be just, the question is settled. The 
free agency of man is consistent with the fore- gettlement of 
knowledge of God. What is true of one free the <* uestion - 
agent may be true of all. Agents, acts, and events may 
exist, free in their character, which are known of God in 
perfect harmony with their freedom. 

As a corollary resulting from these views, we note 
that an agent may be supposed to possess a p 
power of. acting otherwise* than the way that |ore^iown he 
God foreknows he will act. The proposition act> 
that an agent cannot act otherwise than God foreknows 
he will act is not clearly certain, nor possible to be 
proved. He can act otherwise, for there is seen by God 
in him the element of adequate power for other action. 
And yet God will not he deceived ; for such is his per- 
fection of knowledge that it is known to him which power 
of action will be exerted. So that there is a perfect com- 
patibility between the two propositions, an agent can 
act otherwise than the way that God foreknows ; and, 
God can never be deceived in his foreknowledge. 

II. There is a class of thinkers who avoid the difficulty 
of reconciling foreknowledge with free agency by deny- 
ing the existence or the possibility of the foreknowl- 
edge of a free or contingent eyeot. They affirm that 
a free act is, previous to its existence, a nothing, and so 

* Of course in all such propositions as this we mean otherwise in- 
stead, (see p. 27,) or substitutively ; and not two opposite ways at the 
same time. 

18 



274 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

Denial of Fore- no ^ an object of knowledge. The knowing it, 
knowledge, therefore, supposes a contradiction. And as 
the impossibility of performing a contradictory act is no 
limitation of Omnipotence, so the impossibility of a con- 
tradictory knowledge is no limitation of Omniscience. 
Undoubtedly this view would be preferable to the ad- 
mission of predestination, provided it solved the difficulty 
and was necessary to its solution. But it may be doubted 
both whether it be necessary, or whether it solves any 
difficulty. 

Whether there be any foreknowledge or not, it is certain 
that there will be a one particular course of future events 
and no other. On the most absolute doctrine of freedom 
there will be, as we shall soon more fully illustrate, a 
one train of choices freely put forth and no other. If by 
Free events ^ ne a ksolute perfectness of God's omniscience 
S Z icui S a°r me tnat one train of free events, put forth with 
way * full power otherwise, be embraced in his fore- 

knowledge, it follows that God foreknows the free act, 
and that the foreknowledge and the freedom are compat- 
ible. The difficulty does not indeed lie in the compati- 
bility of the two. The real difficulty, (which we distinct- 
ly profess to leave forever insoluble,) as may soon more 
The Real dif- c l eai *ly appear, is to conceive how God came 
Acuity. fry iaai f ore ]c now i e( ig e u But that is no greater 
difficulty than to conceive how God came by his omnip- 
otence or self-existence. It will be a wise theologian 
who will tell us how God came by his attributes. It will 
require a deep thinker to tell how the universe or the 
immensity came by its real or actual deity ; or how the 
present self-existent came to be, and no other. 

III. Freedom, in every individual case, as we have de- 
fined it, implies, that of several possible volitions, one 
and no other will take place : one in opposition to many 
— numerically / one in opposition to any other instead — 
alternatively. And so of a whole series of volitions, 
namely, of the entire existence of any one free being, 



Sect. 3.] FEEE AGENCY AND FOREKNOWLEDGE. 275 

temporal or even eternal, each one volition, and the en- 
tire series of his individual volitions, though of several pop. 
possible to be otherwise, yet will be each & bles ' onewm 
some particular one way. Certainly, when we define that 
a free volition is one which is or will be put forth 
one way, by a will able to put forth some other way 
instead, we do not deny that such particular one will be 
put forth ; nor that such ones, infinite in number, through 
a whole series endless in length, will be put forth. And 
so we may affirm of the infinite number of individual 
volitions of each one of an infinite number of „," 

n . The future free 

tree agents, in one vast totality — interweav- Totalit y- 
ing in mutual correlations with each other, in infinities 
of infinities— that while there is power that each should 
not be, yet each and all will be in its own one way, and 
not another instead. Such a free totality can be viewed 
simply in itself as being just as free as if it were unf ore- 
known; just as free as if there were no God to foreknow 
it. So that the freedomist, with perfect ease and con- 
sistency, is enabled in conception to survey the one great 
free whole of all future volitions as a valid conception ; 
and he can speak of it, and argue about it, as that one 
which in each particularity could not-be, and yet indi- 
vidually and wholly will-be. 

This conception of a system of free alternativity stands 
opposed to the conception of a universal system of absolute 
necessity, as taught by Edwards ; of which 0pposed 
every event is a fixed product of fixed causes ; ^Slty 1 : By 
and the totality, one solid fixation ; of which it is a 
contradiction to suppose, that either for the whole, or 
for a single item of the whole, there is the least possible 
power* to be otherwise. Of the former, the entirety, all 
the elements are pervaded by the will-be, and yet the 
can-be-otherwise; the other by the must-be and the can-be 

• For according to necessity the effect is always the measure and the 
exhaustive of the power. The Totality of events is the exhaustive of 
the Totality of power. 



276 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

no-otherwise. The former is pure certainty ; the latter 
is necessity. 

Opposed, secondly, to this free volitional totality is a 

2 By invari- totality ruled in its events not by the law of 
ability. causation, but by an anterior law of Invariable 

Sequence, to which by the very nature of things all voli- 
tional events conform themselves according to the same 
conditions of comparative strength of antecedents, and 
with the same absolute Uniformity. This claims to be a 
totality of simple certainty, but upon false grounds. 
Simple certainty, unruled by anterior fixed and fixing 
law, belongs to the volition which, with full alternative 
power, will be by the agent ultimately put forth ; this 
Uniformitarian law, if it be what it claims to be, an ab- 
solute invariability, requires and secures that the voli- 
tions and the totality should be configured as necessarily 
to its own anterior type as does the law of Causation. 
It secures a different set of individual volitions from the 
ultimates of free alternativity, but identical with those 
of causative necessity. It excludes from the agent, if not 
the intrinsic power of putting forth a different volition, 
certainly the exertion of that power. And when we un- 
derstand that to put forth that different volition would 
be to annul an axiomatic law, we shall conclude that the 
power itself does not and cannot exist. 

Opposed, thirdly, to this simply certain Totality is the 

3 ByPredes- Totality of Predestination. According to this a 
tination. Will, not dependent on foreknowledge of the 

futurition, selects and predetermines it, contradicting and 
excluding the possibility of a substitute alteriety, and 
causatively securing the identical event. In foreknowl- 
edge the divine cognizance is shaped by the future event ; 
in predestination the event is shaped by and to the pre- 
determination. Even if by some inexplicable coincidence, 
therefore, the event predetermined is in all cases the very 
event at which the alternative Will would ultimately ar- 
rive, still the very moment it becomes predetermined the 



Sect. 3.] FREE AGENCY AND FOREKNOWLEDGE. 277 

power is foreclosed, contradicted, and causatively exclud- 
ed for it to be otherwise, and the agent is no longer a free 
agent. But a predestination based upon foreknowledge 
is not the actually maintained predestination. In a true 
predestination the totality and the individual events, not 
foreknown previous to predestination, but predestinated 
in order to be foreknown, are originated and stereo- 
typed, not by the aggregate of free agents, but by the 
Predestinating Volition primordially causing the efficient 
finite causes to cause, and the effects to exist. 

That supposed Divine Volition by which all events are 
said to be predetermined or predestinated cannot include 
less than these three things: First, origination of the 
event ; second, exclusion of every contradic- Three points 

in Pred.es- 

tory or preventive ; and, third, securement of tination. 
the identical event. The event must of course have its 
first conception in the divine mind, and be fixed upon 
by the divine Will, and that must be the first intentional 
cause of its existence ; for if the divine Will predeterm- 
ine the act, it cannot stand in an inert but in a causative 
relation to the event. Unless causative of the event, it is 
a brutum fulmen, a blank, and a nothing. Next, the 
divine Will as cause must pledge itself, and efficiently 
secure that no adequate contradictory prevents the identi- 
cal event ; by which all counter cause or contrary choice 
is rendered impossible. And, third, as cause the divine 
Will is pledged to secure positively that the identical 
event in the identical way come into existence, so that 
the actual future is solely possible, is necessary, and must 
be. Less than this predestination cannot be. And 
through whatever secondary causes or agents the events 
be effectuated, one thing is self-evident, that the divine 
Will is perfectly and intentionally its responsible author. 
The first cause is responsible cause for the last effect. 

IV. We have then before us the true distinct conception 
of a free totality of free-volitions ; the infinite, universal, 
eternal system of free events, which while they are each 



278 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

one able to be otherwise than thus, yet will freely be 
thus; and while they are able to be thus, and truly will 
and do be thus, are able to be otherwise than thus. Now 
The free To- of this free totality, thus clearly, we trust, con- 
foreimown 6 ceived, our doctrine affirms that it exists in the 
anterior omniscience of God, and is the very 
future totality ivhich God foreknows. It is that grand 
totality (each item of which will be with full power other- 
wise) which is the totality embraced in God's foreknowl- 
edge. And just because it is this grand free alternative 
totality which stands included in God's foreknowledge, 
therefore God's foreknowledge embraces a grand, free 
alternative totality. That is, God foreknows an infinite 
amount of free acts which will be put forth with full 
power of alteriety. That is, God's foreknowledge of the 
act is perfectly consistent with freedom of the act. And 
that is, finally, that God's foreknowledge of the act 
neither makes nor proves its necessity. 

Of this free totality, let us suppose,- there actually 
Record of a existed, before its commencement, a record, 
deSro^not perfectly accurate, of its futurition. It would 
its freedom. ^ fi mogt won d er f u i thing. If that record 

were on the tablet of the Divine Mind, it would be one 
among the many wonders of God, above the power of 
human reason to conjecture how it came to be. But such 
a record would not at all change the nature of the future 
free totality. By the supposition, it is the free totality 
which is on the record, and not the fated totality. 
That is, it is the totality which in the ultimate will take 
place, though there be full power at each volitional act 
for other to take place, which is on the record. There is 
full power for other than the recorded events to take 
No more does place ; just because it is the events which will 
edge. take place though there is full power for other 

events, which are the recorded. If that record be the divine 
Prescience itself, then its full possession of the accurate 
futurition of all free volitions is fully consistent with 



Sect. 3.] FREE AGENCY AND FOREKNOWLEDGE. 279 

the full power of their being put forth otherwise than they 
will be put forth. The entire system of free agents are 
fully adequate to bring into existence an entire totality 
of acts different from the foreknown future free totality. 
Nay, there is power existent in the entire system of free 
agents for an infinite diversity of free totalities ; Different sy S . 
and we may add that there may be in the first Agents°pos- 
progenitors in that system adequate power for Slble ' 
the generation of an unlimited diversity of totalities of 
free agents themselves. 

Of our allegorical tablet, above supposed, the appar- 
ently contradictory propositions are true, 1. That it is ab- 
solutely impossible that its record should not be true ; 
and yet, 2. That it is perfectly possible that the Record trU6t 
events it contains should not take place. The event e possT 
first of these two propositions is true ; for by 
the very supposition the one actually future event amid 
the many possible future events, is the event which 
is ever w r ith absolute accuracy recorded. The second 
is true, because by the very supposition every event 
recorded is an event for which there is an existent 
power that i£ should not be. From the very nature of 
the record it is impossible that it should be changed and 
impossible that it should err ; and yet it is perfectly pos- 
sible (for where there is power for the different, there is 
possibility for the different) that the event should be oth- 
erwise ; and between these two statements there is no 
contradiction. 

V. That the freeness of the act is not affected 
by the consideration of its being foreknown of God, 
may appear from the fact that both may be viewed as 
independent, yet coinciding facts. We can conceive of 
the freedom, first, abstractly from all foreJcnoicledge, or 
foreordination. There is, as before remarked, a large 
class of thinkers who deny foreknowledge, and contem- 
plate the field of free events as spreading out, uncovered 
by any anterior prescience. Nay, an Atheist is fully 



280 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

able to conceive a world of free agents without any 
omnipotent personal first Cause. At any rate, it is fully 
possible for our mind first to posit a world of free agents, 
who put forth an illimitable totality of free volitions, in 
full power for other volitions instead. Such a totality 
maybe viewed as being just as free as if no deity existed 
to decree or foreknow them. And, then, after the con- 
The event as ception of this totality has been fully formed 

free as if ttiere 

were no God. and amply contemplated, we are fully able to 
conceive, additionally, that a foreknowledge, existing 
incomprehensibly to us, may take just this totality into 
its comprehension, without producing the least change in 
its free nature. The foreknowledge has (unlike predes- 
tination) no causative influence on the free event to 
change or destroy its freedom. It is a free totality in 
the first stage of the above concejDtion; it is a free 
totality in the second stage. It is a free totality which 
is presupposed; it is the same free totality which is fore- 
known. That is, there may conceivably be a foreknowl- 
Foreknowi- edge of all the free acts of all free asrents 

edse affects . 

not freedom, without at all affecting their freedom. God may 
thus foreknow all that the whole universe of free agents 
will do without any contradiction to their tree agency. 

VI. If it be true that an agent this moment puts 
forth an act in the full possession of a power for con- 
The transpir- trary act instead, then the doctrine of freedom 

ing act free . _ . . , 

now. is just and true. ±>ut the proposition that 

such an act will be put forth — namely, an act pnvt forth 
with full power for contrary — though unknown to any 
human mind, was true a moment before the alternatives 
arose. Were the proposition declaring which act will 
be thus put forth, with absolute accuracy affirmed one 
moment before the alternatives arose, such a proposi- 
tion, however undiscoverable by the human mind, would 
be perfectly true. Such a proposition, affirming, with 
Always true perfect accuracy, which act would be put 

thatitisnow „ . . ' , n 

free. forth by an agent possessed of contrary power, 



Sect. 3.] FREE AGENCY AND FOREKNOWLEDGE. 281 

would be true not only a moment, a year, but a whole 
eternity before its occurrence. And the truth of that 
proposition from all eternity is fully consistent with the 
doctrine of freedom. That is the truth of the eternal 
proposition that the agent will certainly, unfailingly, 
surely, positively act thus and thus is fully consistent 
with the proposition that there was full power in said 
agent to act oppositely instead. And if the eternal truth 
of that proposition is thus perfectly consistent with its 
alternativity, so must the knowledge, the eternally ante- 
rior knowledge of that truth, be so consistent. If the 
proposition may be eternally true consistently with, 
alternativity, it may be eternally known con- k eternally 
sistently with its alternativity.* Consistently then ye eter 6, 

_ , . . . nally known 

with that alternativity it may be written on yet free. 
the divine mind ; it may be written upon the pages of 
the anterior eternity, upon the firmament of heaven, upon 
the surface of the primitive rocks, upon the pages of the 
prophetic word. If on any of those tablets every future 
volition of every future free being were minutely re- 
corded, it could neither make nor prove any change in 
the nature of its freedom. 

From these views two inferences may be justly drawn. 

] . The prophecies of Scripture, were they ten times 
more numerous and explicit than they are, furnish no 
argument for necessity or predestination. Men are ade- 
quate to falsify both divine foreknowledge and divine pre- 
diction. The free agency of Jesus was uncontradicted by 
the predictions of his conduct. lie himself affirms his 
own full power to falsify the predictions of the Old 
Testament, f His mind could fully comprehend the 
relation in which he stood to prophecy, to divine fore- 
knowledge, and to the divine purposes, and recognize his 

* But not also eternally decreed consistently with that alternativity ; 
for, while knowledge has no influence on the act or event, decree is 
causative, securative, and fixing of the act. 

t See p. 310. 



282 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

obligation to fulfill them all. Men know not their rela- 

Prophecyiim- tion to foreknowledge ; and although they pos- 
its not free- , ° -, • -, i 

dom. sess adequate power to act otherwise than the 

foreknown or predicted way, yet whichever way they do 
really act, omniscience will be beforehand with them, 
and fully and accurately foreknow it. Hence no argu- 
ment could be drawn from the prophecies of holy 
Scripture, to prove the predestination of human actions 
or the necessitation of human agents. 

2. If by setting a train of causes in motion the future 
existence of a particular living free agent is absolutely 
t secured a thousand years hence, its contradictory being 
absolutely excluded, his existence is a necessity. If that 
agent in a given case be able to will either of several 
ways, there is no need of a present causation to make it 
certain which he will do.* The agent, by his act in the 
future, makes all the certainty there now is. It is by 
and from that act solely thus put forth that the present 
will-be of the act exists. He will put forth his act unse- 
cured by any present inalternative making or securement. 
Whichever act he puts forth it is true that he will put 
forth; and that now unmade will-put-forth is all the 
certainty there is. It is by that putting forth solely 
or certainty that the present vrill-be is true. All the cer- 

no previous . , . , ... , . TT T .. 

cause. tamty there is, that is, all the will-be about it, 

depends upon, and arises solely from the free act of the 
agent himself. It is simply the present uncaused will-be 
of an act which can otherwise be. Certainty, therefore, 
is not a previously made, caused, or manufactured thing. 
As to the " certainty in things themselves," of which 
Edwards talks, I pretend not to know what it means 
if it means anything else than the will-be of the thing ; 
but if it be anything which anteriorly fixes the sole one 
way of the thing, thus making it a solely possible futuri- 
tion beforehand, that is no pure certainty, but a necessi- 
tated certainty, a pure necessitation. 
* See p. 227, 



Sect. 3.] EDWARDS ON FOREKNOWLEDGE. 283 



CHAPTEE III. 

EDWARDS'S ARGUMENT FOR NECESSITY FROM FORE- 
KNOWLEDGE. 

VII. The first and main argument of Edwards 
(whose logic we now propose to discuss) against pure 
foreknowledge may be thus abbreviated. 

An event connected by a tie of necessity with another 
absolutely necessary event is itself necessary. Edwards'* 
But a future volition is an event necessarily ment. 
connected with a past, and therefore necessary event, 
namely, God's foreknowledge ; therefore the future voli- 
tion is necessary. The foreknowledge of God, being 
past, has already made sure of its own existence, and 
cannot but be, and is therefore necessary. With this 
past and so necessary foreknowledge, the future fact is 
connected by the necessity of knowledge, and is there- 
fore necessary. 

The necessary connection of the free volition with the 
past omniscience, is the weak point of this Itg weak 
argument. That necessity requires indeed point - 
that the foreknowledge should, in order to its accuracy, 
know the right fact ; and not that the fact must accord 
with the foreknowledge. The necessity lies not upox 

THE FREE ACT, BUT UPON THE EOREKNOWL- Necessity is 

edge. The foreknowledge must see to its kSowfedSe," 

_ ° not on free 

own accuracy. Pure knowledge, temporal or act. 
eternal, must conform itself to the fact, not the fact to 
the knowledge. Knowledge, by its very nature, accepts 
the fact as it is ; it does not shape the fact to itself, or 
require the fact to be configured to its own type. All 
the necessity of connection there is between the divine 
foreknowledge and the event is this, that it is necessary 
— in the sense of requisite — in order to the accuracy of 
the divine foreknowledge, whichever act the free-agent 



284 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II. 

with Ml alternative power puts forth, to have in posses- 
sion that act, and no other instead. But that is no 
necessity on the act. The rightness of the knowledge 
must be seen to eternally before the act. The act is 
bound by no necessity to conform to, or be connected 
with, the knowledge. It is perfectly free to contradict 
the knowledge, and the knowledge must take care 
of itself. The act can be as it pleases, and the knowl- 
edge must conform. The act is under no necessity to 
agree with the knowledge. And these relations are 
5 , a essentially the same whether the knowledge 

Knowledge J ° 

to C g e e S t sit r!ght ^ e temporal or eternal. If the knowledge be 
fact - absolutely eternal in the past, and be pure 

knowledge, it must as truly be conceived as conformed 
to the fact, and not the fact to it, as any knowledge 
of the present instant. How such knowledge can come 
to exist, receiving beforehand the independent self- 
shaping of the fact, is not the question. It is now 
enough to maintain that such is the intrinsic relation 
between fact and knowledge. There is, therefore, no 
connection between divine foreknowledge and the free 
act imposing any necessity upon the latter. 

VIII. Upon the minuter points of his arguments we 
may next note : 

1. Edwards reiterates, with some attempt at emphasis, 
"infallible," the terms " infallible," " unfrustrable " and " in- 

'unfrustra- -. t _ , ,, ■**"■■ . • • 

bie," etc. dissoluble. Vv e admit that omniscience is in- 
fallible, in the sense that it cannot err, and therefore will 
have the right fact ; and unfrustrable, in the sense that it 
cannot be frustrated, because it cannot err; but deny 
that between the foreknowledge and the act of the agent- 
power the connection is necessary or indissoluble. The 
foreknowledge is infallible because in possession of the 
truth of the futurition ; but the agent-power is not neces- 
sitated to produce the act which is foreknown to be the 
true. For the true futurition, foreknown as such, is true 
not necessarily ; but made true by a power adequate to 



Sect. 3.] EDWARDS ON FOREKNOWLEDGE. 285 

make it not true. Between the foreknowledge, therefore, 
however fixed, past, made sure, infallible, or unfrustra- 
ble, and the event or act which will be put forth, there 
is no such necessary indissoluble connection as necessi- 
tates the act to any particular conformation. And the 
argument of Edwards to that effect is a failure. 

By the content of a knowledge we mean the matter or 
matter of fact, as contained in the mind, which „ i 

' ' Content of 

makes up the knowledge, and of which the andlheS 
knowledge consists. N"ow Edwards thinks ternalact - 
that in divine foreknowledge there is an "indissoluble" 
connection between this internal content and the external 
act, requiring the latter to conform to the former. But 
there is not. There is an "indissolubleness" requiring 
the former to conform to the latter ; but that is bound 
to have been taken care of an eternity ago, and the pres- 
ent free act has no concern with it, and is bound by no 
necessity to it. 

2. Edwards says : " And so does certain foreknowledge 
prove that now in the time of the knowledge it is, by 
some means or other, become impossible but that the 
proposition which predicates future existence on the 
event should be true." Edwards is here certainly mis- 
taken. A proposition affirming a certain futu- proposition 

. . . r „ i . .I, n and the fu- 

rition is perfectly consistent with the power tor ture fact. 
the futurition to be otherwise. That such a proposition 
is certain does not prove the necessity of its verification. 
Such a proposition cannot, indeed, be true and false 
at the same time ; but it can be true in full consistency 
with the existence of a power adequate to make it false. 
That the proposition is certain does not prove the non- 
existence of the power, nor the impossibility of its exer- 
tion ; but simply that it will not be exerted. The prop- 
osition simply affirms which of several powers will be 
exerted, and which of several possibilities will become an 
actuality. But that is not affirming but there were the 
other powers and the other possibilities in the case. 



286 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

Indeed, in a true view of the case, we may say that 
the agent is able to falsify that proposition, by which the 
divine foreknowledge affirms that a particular act will be 
put forth. If the divine foreknowledge be not falsified, 
it will not be because there is not the full power for such 
Power to fais- falsification in the free agent. The foreknowl- 
knowiedge. edge secures itself against falsification, not by 
limiting the power of the agent, but by allowing him its 
full exercise in putting forth either one of several possi- 
ble acts, and conforming its own pre-perception to that 
one. It remains, therefore, still true, that while there is 
in the agent full power to falsify the divine foreknowl- 
edge, the foreknowledge can fully guard itself from the 
exercise of that power, and maintain the requisite neces- 
sity, that the accuracy of omniscience should be abso- 
lutely perfect. 

3. u To say the foreknowledge is certain," says Ed- 
Connection of wards, " and infallible, and yet the connec- 

foreknowledge 

and event. tion of the event with that foreknowledge is 
not indissoluble, but dissoluble and fallible, is very ab- 
surd." 1. The foreknowledge, we reply, is infallible in 
the sense that it will not fail of the truth ; whichever is 
truth will and must be infallibly known ; yet inasmuch 
as "the event" that is, the act, is not necessarily the 
How"infai- truth or true act, the connection between that 
nbie." event and the foreknowledge is "dissoluble 

and fallible," in the sense that there is full power for 
other event or act instead, and to say that is not 
proposition "absurd." 2. There is, says Edwards, a 
•he 1 °tr v u n ea t nd " necessary connection between a proposition's 
true mdeed. ^^g k nown to be true, and its being true 
indeed." As just shown, a proposition may be "known 
to be true," it may be consequently " true indeed ;" and 
yet not necessarily " true indeed ;" there may be power 
for it to be made untrue. 3. "If there be any infallible 
knowledge of future volitions," Edwards adds, " the 
event is necessary ; or, in other words, it is impossible 



Sect. 3.] EDWARPS ON FOREKNOWLEDGE. 287 

but the event should come to pass." There Knowledgeof 
may be an infallible knowledge of future vo- ^J sar ° y on - 
litions ; yet the volition infallibly known may event * 
be one put forth with full power for other volition in- 
stead. The infallibility consists in the fact that of either 
put forth, the knowledge will be accurate. Nor is it 
" impossible but that the event should come to pass ;" 
for the very event infallibly foreknown is an event for 
which there was a power adequate for it not to come to 
pass. 3. "If it be not impossible but that it may be 
otherwise," he adds, " then it is not impossible but that 
the proposition which affirms its future coming to pass 
may not now be true." The word may here is Double sense 
ambiguous. It may imply subjective uncer- of ' ima y-" 
tainty arising from ignorance, as " the thing may be so 
for aught I know ;" and in this sense it is here inappli- 
cable. It may imply a power for either way. In that 
sense it is here true. It is not impossible but that for 
the proposition which affirms a futurition, there should 
be a power adequate to render it " now untrue." It is 
true not for the want of power to make it "now untrue," 
but because that power will not be exerted, the very 
act foreknown being the one for which the power will 
be exerted. So that it correctly follows, and is true, 
that " it is not impossible but that there now should be 
no truth in that proposition which is now infallibly known 
to be true." The proposition is infallibly known to be 
true, not because it is impossible to be untrue instead of 
true, but because it is true. It is true, though there ex- 
ists a power adequate to make it untrue instead. The 
knowledge has truly in possession that futurition, which 
the agent, possessed of power for either of several futu- 
ritions, will produce. 

IX. Origen is quoted by Edwards as saying " God's 
prescience is not the cause of things future, but their 
being future is the cause of God's prescience that 
they "will be." To this view of the matter, which has 



288 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

been commended by Arminians, (and we indorse it with 
them,) Edwards furnishes two answers: 1. If foreknowl- 
edge does not make future events necessary, or impossi- 
ble to be otherwise, it proves them so ; and 2. It is as 
strong arguing from effect to cause, as from cause to 
effect ; if foreknowledge be a fixed effect of things future, 
then the future act, being alleged as its cause, must be 
equally fixed. 

God's foreknowledge, we reply, neither makes the 
„ , ■ future event necessary nor proves it so. The 

Foreknowledge J ■* 

proves not ne- event foreknown is the resultant or ultimate 

cessity of fu- 
ture events. act p U £ f or tli hy an agent possessing power 

for different act. The fact that an agent, or an infinite 
number of agents, perform an infinite number of acts, 
with power in every instance for other act instead, does 
not disprove that such acts will be put forth. And cer- 
tainly the fact that those acts are foreknown no more 
proves than it makes them different from what they were 
before, namely, the free acts of free agents. They were 
each able to be otherwise, and they were all able to be 
otherwise ; nevertheless, of all possible ways they are 
thus, and as thus are foreknown. But their being fore- 
known neither takes away their freedom nor proves it 
gone. 

Nor, assuming that the foreknowledge is the effect of 
Foreknowied e wn ^ cn the f ree ac ^ * s tne oause^ does the fixed- 
Sre^fact f f as ness °f tne eternal effect, namely, the fore- 
caicse. knowledge, prove the fixed necessity of the 

cause, namely, the act. For w r hether the act be free or 
necessitated, its eternal anterior effect must be equally 
unvarying. If my present free alternative act send back, 
in the very process of being freely performed, its eternal 
image of itself into the depths of the divine omnis- 
cience, it sends it back, with no trembling line, a true 
image of itself — a free alternative act. It creates in the 
divine mind an eternal unchanging perception of itself as 
it is, a free act. If the divine omniscience be supposed 



Sect. 3.] EDWARDS ON FOREKNOWLEDGE. 289 

to have truly ascertained and taken possession of the 
true free futurition, what demand can there be for change 
or unsteadiness in its eternal pre-perception ? When 
once right it would be its business forever to stay right, 
and be forever immutable in its rightness. If the ray 
of the divine eye be once "fixed" upon the free act, it 
should forever stay fixed. 

Edwards (p. 185) makes the supposition, so fully made 
by us, that the future action may be written in a book, 
as, for instance, in prophetic prediction, and draws the 
inference of necessity. a If so then it is impossible it 
should ever be otherwise than that that predicate and 
the event should agree ; and this is the same thing as to 
say it is impossible but that the event should come to 
pass ; and this is the same thing as to say that its coming 
to pass is necessary." The a^ent-power, we Agent not ne- 

t ' . f . , cessitated to 

reply, is not necessitated to make its act to be verify. 
the act with which the predicate affirmed by foreknowl- 
edge agrees. The foreknowledge must take care of it- 
self. All the impossibility there is that "it should be 
otherwise than that the event and the predicate should 
agree " must be secured by the care of foreknowledge to 
get the right event under its predicate. So long as that 
is duly taken care of the disagreement between the pred- 
icate and the event is sufficiently " impossible," and the 
freedom of the agent is not thereby affected. 

Edwards flings into a variety of forms the reiterated 
argument, or rather assertion, that foreknowledge dem- 
onstrates the necessity of the future fact. " I freely allow 
that foreknowledge does not prove a thing to be neces- 
sary any more than after-knowledge; but then after- 
knowledge, which is certain and infallible, proves that it is 
now become impossible but that the proposition known 
should be true. . . . And so does certain foreknowledge 
prove," etc. After-knowledge, we reply, em- Foreknow i- 
braces a fact which there is no power to cause aft g e e r -knowi- 
to be no fact, or to make to have been not done ; 

19 



290 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

for the past is out of power. The fact accomplished can 
never be made no fact. The past fact has an intrinsic 
necessity of its own, the necessity of already secured ex- 
istence ; and that is a perfect necessity whether known or 
not. But for' the future possible fact there is an adequate 
power for rendering it otherwise than it will be. 

X. Edwards (p. 184) considers the notion that God 
is above the conditions of time, and endeavors to show 
that it demonstrates necessity. This notion is that there 
is " no succession of time to the divine mind," " no fore- 
•• Timeless- knowledge or after-knowledge," but that all is 

fi Etern°a r i the " an eternal now." Edwards endeavors to ap- 
propriate this notion to the purpose of his ar- 
gument, first, by the maxim which we have already 
considered and, . we trust, refuted, that " knowledge 
proves necessity of the thing known." God, he says, 
" always sees things just as they are in truth ;" of which 
we have no doubt, and hence infer that he sees a free 
act to be a free act. But Edwards infers, " hence there 
never is in reality anything contingent in such a sense as 
that possibly it may happen never to exist." But it may 
still be true that a thing may be contingent in the sense 
that there is full power for it not to be. 

Edwards thus puts the point of his argument: "If, 
strictly speaking, there is no foreknowledge in God, it is 
because those things which are future to us are as pres- 
ent to God as if they already had existence?** In regard 
to free future acts, the palpable error of Edwards occurs 
in the italicized words ; in place of which should stand 
these words, as if they were now transpiring. Events 
The foreseen viewed as if they already had existence are, 

co e ming" e "of virtually, past and gone, not now and present. 
It is the becoming of all acts which the " eternal 
now " of God supposes ; not the have become. It is as if 
God were a person now present looking upon the free 
act as now alternatively being performed. That now~be- 
ing-performed-act reflects itself into the divine mind just 



Sect. 3.] EDWAKDS OjNT FOKEKNOWLEDGE. 291 

as it comes into existence ; and just according to its na- 
ture, free, and under condition that other act instead 
were in power and possible. And so the act is not neces- 
sary, and is divinely seen to be not necessary. 

The " eternal now " supposes that God is as a man 
who stands in the sunlight of a clear day and " now " 
watches a leisurely walker directing his steps in whatso- 
ever path he pleases, looking to any point of the com- 
pass, employing his hands in any business he vision of the 
will. Neither the sunlight, nor the ray of the free event - 
watcher's vision, at all limits, circumscribes, hampers, or 
destroys the freedom of the traveler's movements. The 
vision of the watcher takes in the free action just as it 
transpires. God's mind, according to the " eternal now," 
is like this mirror, before which I may stand. Every 
movement of my head, hand, body is reflected with per- 
fect accuracy according as that movement is by me freely 
and alternatively made. The image in the mirror does 
not shape or constrain the movements of my choice, but 
accepts them in all their freedom, and represents them 
precisely as they are successively becoming. My free act 
causes the reproduction in the mirror, not the mirror a 
necessitated act. If the conditions of time, as Edwards 
allows, may be, even for argument's sake, considered as 
supposably non-existent to God, then his mind, filling 
eternity, must be considered as ever present at the mo- 
ment and mirroring the acting, not the act / the thing as 
under the doing, not the thing as done. And not one 
free act alone, or the acts of one free* agent, but the total- 
ity, all are mirrored in the divine mind, in their present 
tense, just as they are when they transpire, free and alter- 
native. The divine knowledge takes them, not makes 
them. If the act is thus, then thus does the divine mir- 
ror receive it; if otherwise, then otherwise. The act 
could have been otherwise than it is mirrored; for 
were it otherwise, then the mirroring would be 
otherwise. The act causes the mirrored reflection, not 



292 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

the reflection the act. The mirrored image conforms to, is 
shaped by, the presented object. Supposing, then, omnis- 
cience to be above the conditions of time, it is a present 
mirror, a divine transparency, taking in the reflection of 
the act as the moving of the act presents it. And thus 
, in the pure, perfect, infinite, boundless light of God's 
omniscience is the limitless Totality of all free acts com- 
ing into existence. It neither makes the act unfree nor 
proves it so. Whatever freeness may be in the nature of 
the act remains unchanged. 

XI. As regards the individual human being, the doc- 
trines of predestination and of foreknowledge may be 
illustrated by the following two views : 

1. Before every man at his birth (according to predes- 
Predestmated tination) is a certain course of actions, which 

individual ., . « . . ,. .. -i-i-i 

course. by an lnimite causation it is secured that he 

must take, all others being decretively and causatively 
excluded. In this statement predestination, necessity, 
and fatalism coincide. 

2. Before every man at his birth, according to fore- 
Foreknown knowledge, there is a course of actions, which 

course. ^e w jr[ c hoose among many others equally in 
his power of choice, and from which he is not excluded 
by antecedent causation. 

Both these cases agree in the futurition of some one 
course, but differ in the nature of the agency which pro- 
duces the course. 

Now it would seem that if by some perfection of the 
Prescript af- divine nature there should exist a tablet, upon 
freedom. which were written, without any connection 
with the course, except the most truthful agreement, the 
exact details of this case No. 2, it would prove nothing 
as to the intrinsic capability in the man of taking any 
other course. It would amount to this, that the course 
which, in full possession of ample power to choose any 
other course, he actually will choose, is the course which 
is written. The existence of such a tablet would certain- 



Sect. 3.] PREDESTINATION UNNECESSARY. 293 

ly not affect his freedom. Nor would it disprove his 
freedom ; for any theory of freedom admits, not only of 
one man but of all free agents, that there is a certain one 
course which he or they will, freely and alternatively, of 
all others take. And if by supposition that is truly the 
one recorded, the existence of the tablet a million of 
years, or from all eternity, neither makes nor proves the 
actions of the agent to be not free. 

The difficulty, then, is not to tell how our freedom is 
consistent with foreknowledge. It is to tell how God is 
omniscient.. We shall not trouble our mind with that 
inquiry. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

PREDESTINATION AN UNNECESSARY HYPOTHESIS. 

Predestination, as we have in the proper places de- 
lineated it, is not only involved in endless difficulties and 
perplexities, but in meeting the demands of a rational 
theodicy and of Scripture interpretation, it is an unneces- 
sary hypothesis. The plan of the universe may be ration- 
ally outlined; the text of Scripture can be naturally 
construed, without owing it any obligations. 

The Divine Plan, as embraced in God's predetermina- 
tions, is a scheme strictly embracing only the predeterm- 
Divine Actions. Supposing that in the infi- Go a d'so^ 
nitely distant anterior " timelessness " God is acts * 
employed in selecting from all possible systems that 
which his wisdom best approves, the system which he is 
to be viewed as finally adopting is a system consisting, 
properly and directly, of his own future actions. Know- 
ing indeed by the absolute perfection of his own attri- 
bute of omniscience all future possibilities, including all 



294 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

possible results from any supposed arrangements, God 
does, in full foreknowledge of all results in the case, so 
plan all his own actions and courses as seems to him wis- 
est and best. So far forth as sequently upon any act or 
course of God any free being will sin, for that sin the free 
Leaves finite being, being fully able to avoid it, and bringing 

Agent free, ft unn ecessarily into existence, is alone responsi- 
ble. He alone has intruded it into existence.* God 
neither predetermined, foreordained, willed, nor desired 
it. God's predeterminations of his own future action, or 
courses of action, are to be considered as so far contin- 
gent, as that their execution or coming into existence is 
conditioned upon the coming into existence of many pre- 
supposed free actions of finite agents, which are able not 
to be put forth. Yet, nevertheless, inasmuch as God's 
YetGodnev- omniscience does truly and fully foresee the 

nor dec Iisap5 ^ ree volition which will actually, with full 

pointed. power otherwise, be put forth, there is no 
proper danger that God will be deceived in the perfect 
vrisdom of his plans, or be frustrated in any of his 
actual purposes. 

Let us, as a theodicic illustration, suppose that a 
supposed hu- perfectly good and wise prince, absolute in 

man prince. au thority, rules over as many tribes and 
nations as Persian Xerxes; the large share of whom 
are hostile to each other, and desperately depraved. 
His plan is not to destroy, nor to interfere with their 
personal freedom, but so to arrange their relations to 
each other as that he may make them mutual checks 
upon each other's wickedness ; that the ambition of one 
may opportunely chastise the outrage of another ; that 
Non-prevents those wrongs which will exist may be limited 

but limits free , , J . 

sin. and overruled; and that even the crimes 

which they will commit may further his plans of refor- 
mation, gradual perfectability, and highest sum total 
of good. If it is seen that a traitor will assassinate, be 
* See p. 42. 



Sect. 3.] PREDESTINATION UNNECESSARY. 295 

the victim in his way one whose death will be a public 
benefit. If brothers (as Joseph's) will envy their 
brother, let their victim thereby so conduct himself as 
that he shall be the saviour of great nations. If a 
proud prince will wanton in his pride, so nerve him up, 
vitally and intellectively, as that his wantonness shall 
spread great truths through the tribes of the empire. If 
a warlike king will conquer, let the nation exposed to his 
invasions be one whose chastisement will be a lesson to 
the world. If a numerous tribe is bent on devastating 
the earth, let their hordes so ravage as that future civil- 
ization shall spring from the desolations they make. So 
after long years his scheme of development may work 
out its divine results. 

If we may suppose that he was endued with a more 
than mortal foresight; if we may imagine that he had a 
plan, partly a priori, and partly based on 
foreseen deeds of his subjects, we might then ^into ac- 
conceive that he could take all the passions, p n ian h of £™ 
crimes, bold enterprises, and wild movements duct * 
which he foresaw men would exhibit, into his account, 
not as by him determined, but as cognized parts within 
his stupendous scheme of good. 

He would so collocate men and things into a whole plan, 
that their mutual play would work out the best results. 
And if his wisdom, as well as his power, is infinite, and 
his existence is eternal, then the entire scheme could be 
comprehended within his prescient glance in all its grand- 
est and minutest parts, with all their causations, freedoms, 
and dependencies, and so comprehended that his prede- 
terminations touch properly his own acts, leaving the free 
acts to the self-origination of free agents. And this may 
be, in the great whole, in spite of permitted wrong, the 
best possible system. We should then, in vision, behold 
all beings, however free, spontaneously, uncompulsorily, 
without command or decree, moving in harmony with 
his outlines of event, which is but the transcript of their 



296 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

free actions, and by their very iniquities and abomina- 
tions, without any countenance from him or any excuse 
to themselves, working results they never dreamed, 
but which are in his plan. 

Of this prince two sorts of language will be held. 
On the one hand it will accurately and truthfully be 
said that he was a wise, a good, and a" holy prince. He 
Double ian- neither intended, nor necessitated, nor counte- 
guage. nanced, nor purposed, nor decreed, nor ordained, 
nor instigated any wrong. He never foreordained what 
comes to pass. No one ever sinned by any necessitative 
motive-force, or law of invariability. Each one had power 
for other volition. And so Scripture expresses itself when 
it describes the divine character or the comprehensive ethic 
of the divine government. On the other hand it will be 
popularly and elliptically, though not with literal accu- 
racy, said, that these brothers were instruments in his 
hands to send their youngest to another land to be 
its saviour. It will be said that he sent this assassin to 
accomplish the beneficial death of that victim. It will 
be said that he armed this conqueror to chastise that 
nation; and that he poured those hordes over those 
plains in desolation. And so Scripture expresses itself 
when its stand-point is upon the plane of popular 
thought, and its purpose is merely to express the divine 
side of events. In literal truth, he neither ordered, did, 
nor approved any of those things. Yet as they were 
done under his administration, as they were cognized in 
his plans, as they worked out his results, so with a con- 
ventional, popular, conceptual truth, it will be said that 
he did the whole. 

It might seem as if the very births and coming into 
existence of men involved human history in an inextrica- 
ble interweaving of fatalism. Edwards has a passage 
Birth not fa- (P- 159 ) expatiating upon the immense number 
taiistic. f physiological minutiae, requiring the whole 
train of antecedents which actually exist, which resulted 



Sect. 3.] PREDESTINATION UNNECESSARY. 297 

in the birth " of the great conquerors of the world who, 
under God, have had the main hand in shaping the state 
of the world in after ages, such as Nebuchadnezzar, 
Cyrus, Alexander, Pompey, Julius Cesar," etc. Nay, 
what an infinite number of slight incidents have resulted 
in the birth of each one of us, and have, as it were, 
become solidly embodied in our persons ; indicating that 
all those incidental antecedents, slight and slender as 
they seem, were as fixed as a most complex piece of 
adamantine machinery. 

If, however, any man will consult his own conscious- 
ness, he will recognize that there is a Self Real self un- 
within him, underlying all the facts of his ncaiseif. 
history, in which he feels a deep, unchangeable, untrans- 
ferable interest. He has an intransferable interest in his 
own joys and sorrow, well or ill-being, which he can 
conceive as extending through eternity. No alterations 
in his past or future history can change or diminish it. 
He can feel that there are points of time in which his 
whole history might have been revolutionized. His 
fortune, rank in life, place of residence, profession, mat- 
rimonial connections, and children, might all have been 
different, and yet that conscious interior Self, in which 
he feels that untransferable interest would have been the 
same Self. 

Still further, I can conceive that this Self might have 
had a different birth. I, this same conscious self-inter- 
ested Ego, might have been born in Helvetia, in the 
time of Julius Cesar, of Gallic parents. My name, his- 
tory, and entire stock of thoughts might have been dif- 
ferent, and yet their subject might have been this same 
essential I. And so I can conceive that same Self as 
passing through thousands of incarnations and metemp- 
sychoses, as being born, living, dying, in a thousand 
different spheres, without any change in my underlying 
self-sameness, or any diminution of conscious interest in 
my own destinies. 



298 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

If so, my essential Self lies deeper than my historical 
Self. Upon what slight chances of smiles and glances 
does marriage often depend; and yet the existence of 
your manly son or blooming daughter depended upon 
it ? Not quite certainly so. That very son, in all that 
makes his essential ,&(/* interesting to himself, may have 
God's ioca- been born of other parents, even in another 
viduais. age and country, and with a totally different 
set of externalities. God can thus locate a human being 
at any point he pleases in human history without chang- 
ing his essential self. Nor is our personal existence that 
accident of accidents it might seem. 

1. God, in accordance with the laws of human descent, 
God m shapes yet as wise Sovereign, bestows the individual 

uai. personal human spirit upon each human body 

procreated; he furnishes, in what measure he pleases, 
the power and abundance respectively of intellectual, 
volitional, and emotional nature. He, too, frames the 
body, furnishing its natural growth, its proportions, and 
its qualities of strength and beauty, or the reverse. He 
supplies, too, the vital power, the nervous vigor, and 
the animal exuberance, or their reverse. 

2. He locates the individual in the system of men and 

things. In what country, parentage and fam- 

Locates, ., , , , -, 

ily, rank, or tune he pleases, he assigns us our 
existence. 

3. He modifies our immediate being. Without touch- 

ing our moral nature, at any rate for the worse, 
he may for the time being strengthen our pow- 
ers and faculties, or weaken them ; giving us extraordi- 
nary perspicacity, or eclipsing our intellects. He may 
suggest ideas not of unholy nature, but of a good, or of 
an unethical quality. 

4. More or less resulting from these, arise juxtaposi- 
tions and correlations, by which divine ends are most 
Assigns re- easily secured in the natural course of events. 

lations. Without being a tempter, for instance, God 



Sect. 3.] PBEDESTINATION UNNECESSARY. 299 

may interpose before a man of raging passion the object 
whom he would have punished. 

Before a powerful and ambitious prince, as Nebuchad- 
nezzar,* to whom he has given birth in the Nebuchad . 
royal family of Babylon, and placed upon its nezzar - 
throne, God spreads the guilty land of Israel. Volun- 
tarily and unmoved of God, with full power of doing 
otherwise, the wicked prince ravages the land as a beast 
of prey. The end of God, the punishment of Israel, the 
monarch thus, without divine decree, temptation, influ- 
ence, participation, or sanction, accomplishes. In that 
work, though God's enemy, and guilty therein of .crime 
and sin, he has become God's servant. God, neverthe- 
less, needed not Nebuchadnezzar. He could have pun- 
ished Israel by other hands; or by natural means, as 
with earthquake, fire, disease, or storm. 

At a certain time Jehovah would manifest his glory 
over the idols and the royalty of Egypt. He opens his 
series of plagues upon Pharaoh so powerfully 

t a i <* i i n Pharaoh. 

that the proud heart of the monarch would 
have softened, not with penitence, but with fear. In 
order that the series of miraculous displays may be con- 
tinued to their full number, God " hardens his heart ;" f 
that is, strengthens its physical energies without touch- 
ing his moral nature, or necessitating or tempting his 
will; and the proud king's own wicked will, resuming 
its courage, freely completes its wicked purpose. 

God wills (not as Edwards says, that Christ should be 
"crucified," but) that his son should lay down The cruci- 
his life to redeem lost men. There are thou- fixion - 
sands of methods, from heaven above, or from earth 
below, in which it can be accomplished. But God fore- 
knows that at that period and juncture the worst of men 
are living and ready to betray and to crucify him. It 

* In the following illustrations we take the Scripture instances ad- 
duced by Edwards, pp. 357-360. 
t See Prof. Bush on Exod. iv, 21. 



300 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

was fitting that God should permit the world to show 
how wicked men could be, as well as how good is God. 
A traitor there is in the twelve that is ready, and fore- 
seen to be willing, to be the undecreed, unnecessitated 
betrayer. The Jews and Gentiles are both at Jerusa- 
lem, foreseen to be ready and willing to be the un obliged 
crucifiers. Jesus has but to take his position at that 
central point and bide his time. Freely, responsibly, 
without decree, participation, or sanction on the part of 
God, the traitor and the murderers accomplish the work. 
Thus God's end, that his Son should lay down his life, 
is accomplished. It is done by wicked men ; yet neither 
are they to be thanked, or God to be implicated. 

Thus, indeed, is God a wonderful King. Great in 
truth is Divine Sovereignty. Other monarchs have 
friends and servants to fulfill their orders ; but for God 
the King, even enemies in their crimes run, without orders, 
connivance, or thanks, and with ready spontaneous sub- 
servience perform his purposes and win his battles, 
sinners effect ^nd wnen men, or even Satan, thus subserve 
God's ends. fa Q accomplishment of God's end, Scripture 
does often give only the divine side of the transaction, 
and elliptically speaks as if the whole were done by God. 
That is, God, without causing the wicked act, or sharing 
its performance or guilt, accomplishes through it his holy 
purpose. In this sense does Scripture represent God as 
performing what the wicked instrumentally accomplish. 

Thus may it be seen that Predestination is wholly un- 
required and useless in theology. 



Sect. 3.] CHRIST A FREE MORAL AGENT. 301 



CHAPTER V. 

CHRIST NOT A NECESSITATED, BUT A FREE MORAL 
AGENT. 

Christ was unsurpassably. meritorious, yet Christ had 
no volitional power to sin. Necessity and desert are 
therefore intrinsically compatible. So Arminianism is 
false. Thus reasoned Edwards through nearly twenty 
pages, on the distinct basis that the argument is decisive 
of the whole question: "I have been the Ion- Necessity and 
ger in proof of this matter, it being the thing ibieincffi? 
denied by some of the greatest Arminians — by Episcopius 
in particular ; and because I look upon it as a point clearly 
and absolutely determining the controversy between Cal- 
vinists and Arminians, concerning the necessity of such 
a freedom of Will as is insisted on by the latter, in order 
to the moral agency, virtue, command or prohibition, 
promise or threatening, reward or punishment, praise or 
dispraise, merit or demerit." — P. 211. 

Grant to Edwards the conclusiveness of his argument, 
and his claim to have settled the compatibility of neces- 
sitation and desert is undeniable. Yet, strange to say, a 
large class of Arminians, from a notion that what they 
call "a liability to sin" includes some taint, or suspicion, 
of sin, or corruption itself, grant all that Edwards argues, 
and so grant that necessitation of Will is no bar to merit 
or guilt. What need, then, of claiming non-necessitation 
of Will in order to desert in any case ? 

The phrases "power to sin" and "liability to sin," as 
predicated of Jesus or any other being, are of «» Liability t0 
different import. The latter is not a true ex- sin *" 
pression of our doctrine of Jesus. "Liability to sin" 
gives the impression of a weakness justifying an expecta- 
tion that the sin will probably take place,, and often im- 
plies proclivity to sin. Though free agents to those sins, 



302 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

we would hardly say that Aristides was liable to thieving, 
that Howard was liable to commit murder, or that Wash- 
ington was liable to be a despot. 

The free, volitional power to sin, so far from being a de- 
Powertosin- feet, an impurity, an imperfection, implies and 

fection. is a high quality;* a condition to responsibil- 
ity, to probation, to a high, jvell-deserving virtue or holi- 
ness. Not only may it be possessed by a being perfectly 
pure, but it must be primordially possessed by a being 
meritoriously pure. No being ever possessed the fullness 
and height of a moral nature without it. No moral being 
ever held command of the entirety of his moral nature, 
or over a lofty probationary moral career of destiny, 
without it. No finite creature ever attained the reward- 
ing plaudit of the Sovereign of the universe without it. 
Effeminately to strip Jesus of the attributes of which 
this possibility is an implication, is not only to dehuman- 
ize him, but it is to snatch from him the conditions of his 
high achievements. It destroys the reward by nullifying 
the struggle. It makes his whole mission an automatic 
series of movements ; a mere organic piece of a mechan- 
ical panorama. 

Whether Jesus was "in a state of probation" is a 
jesus under question irrelevant to this point. The axiom 

probation? t kat necessity is intrinsically incompatible with 
moral desert is limited to no one sphere. It belongs to 
all actual and all possible being, whether in a probational 
state or not. Desert, merit, guilt, responsibility, is, in 
its own intrinsic nature, incompatible with volitional 
necessitation. 

1. Christ was truly and perfectly human. He had a 
completely human body and human soul. All the physi- 
cal and psychological sensibilities which analysis finds in 
humanity existed in their completeness in his nature. 
Christ human Their superior purity consisted in their symmet- 

thoughin- . , ^ X , . , , . 

nocent. ncal proportions and their complete harmonious 
* See p. 322. 



Sect. 3.] CHRIST A FREE MORAL AGENT. 303 

subjection to a free will which warded off the approaches 
of all stimulants to too intense an excitement, or to any 
irregular action, and held the whole being in blessed 
conformity to the moral law. 

How temptation without sin might take place may be 
illustrated by the case of the hungering Jesus. How Ms 

-,-r. . -, n , . . t t n -. -, temptation 

His rightful appetite existed, and food was the possible. 
correlate rightful object by which it might be ordinarily 
gratified. The tempter presents the object, contrarily 
to the divine order and law. The mind's eye of Jesus 
fully recognizes the object, and fully understands its power 
to gratify and to satiate his demanding appetite. Thus 
far no sin on his part exists ; for fully to understand, 
intellectually, the desirableness of a thing is not to de- 
sire it. " His sense of Moral right cognizes that between 
the object and the appetite the divine Law interposes 
a veto. With that veto the Will coincidingly interposes, 
and shuts the object out from the mental desire or con- 
sent. It is the intellect alone that entertained the ob- 
ject, and that only so far as fully to comprehend its cor- 
relations. Thus is temptation possible without sin. 

2. He was a true and real free moral agent. In him, 
as in all other moral free agents, psychological A true free 
analysis must find a Will able to choose either agent - 
one of two, good and evil, alternatives. This is the most 
striking attribute of all complete humanity. If he had a 
complete human soul, then he had a Will and a free Will. 
Without it in the nature the being is not a man. To 
separate it from Jesus is to dehumanize his nature. 
We might as well, and far better, with the ancient 
Docetse, reduce his corporeity to a phantasm of a hu- 
man body, as to reduce his soul below the conditions of a 
human free moral agent. 

3. Without the power of volitional compliance tempta- 
tion is an unreality. Temptation to impossible Truly tempt- 

... ., , T ed so able to 

act is impossible. It is preposterous to say yield, 
that I am tempted to fly to the moon; or that I am tempt- 



304 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

ed to make two and two to be five. But even for these 
I am able to make some abortive attempts at volition. 
I am able to be willing to do them. But in the case of 
Jesus, it is the very volition which is supposed to be out 
of his power. His so willing is supposed to be as im- 
possible as my bo flying. His willing is as impossible as 
my flying without a Will. Now in the very nature of 
things such a temptation is no temptation. Temptation 
is offered inducement to do something doable. The very 
supposition reduces the whole scene and history of the 
temptation to a phantasm and a figment. 

4. If Christ were not a free agent, even between al- 
if not free, ternatives of good and evil, then he can be no 

then no ex- , • _ , _ __.._. 

ample. example for human free agents. He is either 
exalted far above or sunk far below any exemplifying 
analogy. When he is proposed as an example of perfect 
virtue suffering temptation, the conclusive reply may be 
made, " Make it impossible for me to sin and I will be 
as holy as he." Nay, such a view of Christ sinks his vir- 
tue below the standard of genuinely tempted and truly re- 
sisting human virtue. If the beautiful sentiment of 
Fletcher be true, that " before the Lawgiver and Judge 
of all the earth the unnecessitated voluntary goodness of 
one angel or one man is more excellent than the neces- 
sary goodness of a world of creatures as unavoidably and 
passively virtuous as a diamond is unavoidably and pas- 
sively bright," then does it irresistibly follow that the 
unnecessitated virtue of one man is more excellent than 
the virtue of a whole world of necessitated Jesuses. 

5. And this brings us to the final point. The funda- 
Counterpow- mental Arminian maxim is, that power to the 

to me?it! sl e contrary is requisite to all moral merit. It is 
applicable to all volitional agents whether " under pro- 
bation" or not. And unless this fundamental axiom, 
lying at the basis of all just moral government, is to 
be upturned and totally abolished for all cases, then if 
we hold to the merits of Jesus we must hold to the free 



Sect. 3.] CHRIST A FREE MORAL AGENT. 305 

moral agency of Jesus. We shall otherwise be obliged 
to affirm the maxim that volitional necessity of nature is 
compatible with volitional responsibility. And that be- 
ing granted, the statement of Edwards is incontroverti- 
ble that it " is a point clearly and absolutely determining 
the controversy between Calvinism and Arminianism." 

The two general theses of Edwards's extended argu- 
ment on this subject are, 1. It is impossible Edwards * s 
that the acts of the Will of the human soul of twotheses - 
Christ should be otherwise than holy; and, 2. Christ in 
his holy behavior was. a moral agent, subject to com- 
mands, meritorious and eminently praiseworthy. 

In proof of the first thesis Edwards argues from God's 
promises to Christ, to uphold him, to give him an ever- 
lasting kingdom and priesthood ; from God's promises 
to the Church, to the elect, that Christ should be a sure 
saviour ; and from the surety of the salvation which 
Christ was to accomplish.* 

All this needs here but a brief reply, which we will 
draw from the nature of God's foreknowledge and proph- 
ecy, and from the conditionally of God's promises. 

1. We have shown in the proper place f that the 
prophecies of Scripture do not in any degree affect the 
necessity of any future event. If every future free act 
foreknown by God were written upon the Prophecy 
skies, it would neither make nor prove it nee- ch°rls e rs Sn- 
essary. That record w r ould prove not the ne- freedom - 
cessity of the event, but the inexplicable character of its 
own origin. 

2. Still less can be made from the promises of God 
which are founded upon God's foreknowledge; NorGod , s 
and which are, even when no condition is ex- P romises - 
pressed, to a great degree conditional. 

* The texts are such as the following : Isa. xlii, 1-4 ; xlix, 7-9 ; 1, 5, 6 ; 
Psa. ex, 4 ; ii, 7, 8 ; xiv, 3, 4 ; Jer. xxiii, 5, 6 ; xxxiii, 15 ; Isa. ix, 6, 7 ; 
xi, 1 ; liii, 13 ; Gen. xxii, 16, 17 J Psa. lxxxix, 3, 4, etc. 

+ See p. 281. 

20 



306 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

The great Law of the conditionality of G-ocTs prom- 
Shown to be ^ ses * s expressed in various forms in the word 
conditional f q ^ an( j i s authorized to be ever inserted as 
tacitly implied when it is not expressed. Thus in Ezek. 
xxxiii, 13, we have the general principle of conditionality 
in regard to individuals : " When I shall say to the right- 
eous that he shall surely live ; if he trust to his own 
righteousness and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses 
shall not be remembered ; but for his iniquity that he 
has committed, he shall die for it." The word surely 
here indicates the fact that the promise is made in the 
most unconditioned form ; yet the principle none the less 
holds good that the condition is still implied. If the 
character of the promisee, in consideration of which the 
promise is made, becomes freely and voluntarily changed, 
the grounds of the promise disappear and its validity 
ceases. In the following context, verses 14-16, the same 
principle is applied in regard to the divine threatenings. 
However un- No matter in how unconditioned a form the 
in terms. divine justice may be pledged, if the guilty 
character by which it was induced is changed by repent- 
ance and reformation, the force of the divine threatening 
ceases. 

In Jeremiah xviii, 7-10 the same principle of condi- 
tionality is laid down in regard to God's apparently un- 
conditioned promises and threats addressed to nations. 
" At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and 
concerning a kingdom to pluck up and to pull down 
and to destroy it, if that nation against which I have 
pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil 
that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I 
shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a king- 
dom, to build and to plant ft, if it do evil in my sight 
that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good 
wherewith I said I would benefit them." So in Jonah 
iii, 4, the threatening was, " Yet forty days and Nineveh 
shall be overthrown," without condition; yet the threat- 



Sect. 3.] CHRIST A FREE MORAL AGENT. 307 

ening was reversed by the repentance of the Nmevites. So 
also God promises entrance into Canaan unconditionally 
to the children of Israel in Exodus iii, 8, 17, and vi, 7, 8. 
Yet in Numbers xiv, 30, etc., he says, "Doubtless ye 
shall not come into the land concerning which I sware 
to make you dwell therein," etc. "But as for you, your 
carcasses shall fall in the wilderness . . . and ye shall know 
my breach of promise" 

In the above texts the conditional promises in the 
unconditioned form affect the destinies of those Performance 

-, , i t t n , of condition 

to whom they are addressed, and not consequen- not insured. 
tially of some one else. The fulfillment of the promise 
is conditioned upon the faithfulness of the promisee, nor 
is the securement of that faithfulness any part of the 
promise. 

But in 1 Samuel i, 30, the unconditional promise of the 
priesthood to Eli and to his house forever is declared to 
be revoked in regard, not to himself alone, but, conse- 
quentially, to his posterity, on account of the unfaith- 
fulness of Eli in not checking the wickedness Y icariouscon . 
of his two sons. U I said indeed that thy ditionalit y- 
house, and the house of thy fathers, should walk before 
me forever ; but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me ; 
for them that honor me I will honor, and they that 
despise me shall be lightly esteemed." The promise of 
the perpetual priesthood, though unconditioned in form, 
presupposed the faithfulness of the promisee. And the 
unfaithfulness of the head of the family produced the 
revocation of the promise, not only for himself, but for all 
his posterity forever. 

From all this it follows that all the promises quoted 
by Edwards addressed to, or made in behalf of the 
Messiah, however unconditioned in form, implied the 
condition on his part faithfully to discharge his tran- 
scendent trust; nor, be it marked, does the securement 
of that fulfillment, far less its necessitation, precluding 
the power or possibility of its non-fulfillment, form any 



308 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

part of the language or the essence of the promise. 
So far as Christ himself is, therefore, concerned, as the 
type of his people he stands upon the same foundation. 
The promises of God conditioned upon his perseverance 
of character, do not pledge or secure that perseverance, 
but hold their own fulfillment dependent upon it. 

So far as the promises made on account of Christ to 
the Church, or to the elect, are concerned, they stand 
parallel to the promises made to the posterity of Eli on 
account of their family head ; though unconditioned in 
form they lose their validity, consequentially, by the 
failure of their representative. The promises presuppose 
the faithfulness of the federal head ; nor do they contain 
in their essence any securement of the actuality of that 
faithfulness. Far less do they imply any necessitation of 
his Will precluding the power of an apostate volition or 
an unfaithful career. 

To the divine organic arrangement of the scheme of 
salvation, including " the eternal purpose and decree of 
God," " the salvation of all the saints who were saved 
from the beginning of the world to the death of Christ," 
and "the enlargement of his Church, the salvation of 
God's entire the Gentiles through him," etc., the principle 
plans meas- elsewhere stated in regard to the theodocic 

urably con- . , Jr . ~ , 

tingent. predeterminations oi God apply.* God, in 
view of the future course which free agents will with 
full power otherwise take, predetermines his own plans 
and procedures ; which procedures are so far contingent 
in their actual accomplishment as they are conditioned 
upon the real actuality of the free-agent's course in time ; 
yet inasmuch as the divine foresight is clear and omnis- 
cient, the divine plans and procedures will never fail of 
accomplishment. 

To many it seems a matter in which the fearful blends 
too much with the sublime, that interests so immense 
should be suspended upon a fiber so slight as the free 
* See p. 294. 



Sect. 3.] CHKIST A FREE MORAL AGENT. 309 

human Will of the single man, Jesus. They seek a 
firmer security by changing the nature of that Will from 
freedom to necessity, and thus underlay a mechanical 
prop to the organic arrangement of God's kingdom. If 
they can only transform all the struggles and tempta- 
tions and trials of Jesus to a showy automatic machinery, 
in which his nature is an unyielding substance, which 
could no more give way under the hostile forces than a 
cube of solid steel could be annihilated by a hydrostatic 
pressure, then all seems safe. But that is to change con- 
ceptually the nature of things and beings. It is the fool- 
ish result of a faithless and timid fancy. The view we 
have given admits no uncertainty to the divine No uncer 
mind as to the accomplishment of the entire tainty - 
plan of salvation. For divine omniscience, according to 
its ordinary statement, embraces knowledge of not only 
all actual, but of all possible objects, events, and be- 
ings, including all possible objects, events, and beings 
under all possible conditions and suppositions. And in 
full view of all the possibilities of the case, the infinite 
wisdom and foreknowledge of God had selected for 
Messiah that Being of all others who, he foresaw, 
would, with perfect free Will, prefer God to Satan, and 
in spite of all temptation, prove true to his redemp- 
tional office, and through every difficulty attain the 
summit of divine success and glory. Hence, while 
there was an intrinsic possibility in the Christ fore- 

seen, freely 

thing, and an intrinsic alternative power of holy. 
choice in the being, there was a full and perfect cer- 
tainty upon which the Divine mind could rest with an 
infinite reliance, that the possible catastrophe of his 
failure would not take place. 

That there was in the structure of Christ's Will no 
organic non-existence of power of alternative choice 
between good and evil, is proved by all scripture proof 
those passages that specify the evil which, agency. 
with effort, he avoided, and the motives for evil which 



310 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

he meritoriously rejected. " Thou hast loved righteous- 
ness and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, 
hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy 
fellows." " The Lord hath opened mine ear ; so that I 
was not rebellious, neither turned away my back. I 
gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them 
that plucked off the hair ; I hid not my face from shame 
and spitting."* If, indeed, there was an organic impos- 
sibility in the constituted nature of Jesus to yield to 
these terrible assaults and pressures, what merit in his 
resistance? It was simply a statical balance of opposite 
forces, in which it was impossible that the major force 
should be outweighed. 

But let the words of Christ himself settle the question. 
" Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, 
and he shall presently give me, more than twelve legions 
of augels? But how, then, shall the Scriptures be ful- 
filled, that thus it must be?" Matt, xxvi, 53, 54. Note 
here that it is in full view of the morally obligatory 
"must " that the Scriptures be fulfilled, in full view of 
the entire argument drawn from the mass of prophecy, 
decree, and divine plans, that our Saviour here avers his 
own complete intrinsic power as a free agent to avoid 
the endurance of the stupendous sufferings before him, 
and he completely negatives the notion that he cannot 
do it. That is, neither prophecy, nor promise, nor fore- 
knowledge, nor any supposed decree or predestination, 
neutralizes or negatives his full power to will and to 
take a reverse course. The reverse course indeed, in 
the present case, presupposes the consent of his heavenly 
Father, and so presupposes no sin. But that fact no 
way affects the complete disproof from the passage 
of the notion that prophecy or promise do in any degree 
limit the freedom of the agent, or detract in the least 

* If by probation is meant a state of endurance of trial upon which, 
approbation and reward are dependent, then assuredly Jesus was in 
that state. 



Sect. 8.] CHRIST A FREE MORAL AGENT. 311 

from his intrinsic power for a reverse volitional course. 
If prophecy that he should endure certain sufferings does 
not disprove his power to choose the avoidance of those 
sufferings, then prophecy that he shall pursue a straight 
path of rectitude does not disprove his power to choose 
the path of wrong. But this power to wrong is clearly 
implied in the text above quoted, which announces the 
reward of Jesus for rejecting the wrong — a reward, for- 
sooth, for what he could not help ! Surely every sensi- 
ble Arminian must by this time see that all the positions, 
arguments, and evasions by which the free agency of Jesus 
is denied are necessitarian and Calvinistic ; while all 
our arguments and replies are precisely the same, (and 
encounter the same logic,) touching the specific case of 
Jesus, as Arminianism uses in regard to all other beings. 
That is, such an Arminian is a pro tempore Calvinist. 

We may finally remark that, according to Edwards's 
own account of the matter, it is not correct "in strict 
propriety of speech" to say that there was any Edwards * s fr. 
real impossibility in the failure of the plan of consistenc y- 
salvation, and the defeat and overthrow of God's decree. 
It is all a matter of mere moral necessity. Men say that 
a thing is in a man's power when a thing is at his elec- 
tion ; and it was at the election of the man Jesus to sin, 
and defeat the Almighty. He had, according to Ed- 
wards's own theory, the same power that any man has 
to sin in those cases where they do not sin. Every man 
who does not sin, fails to sin by reason of the strongest 
motive, just as did Jesus ; so that he, in this respect, was 
according to Necessitarianism just like any other man. 



312 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 



CHAPTER VI. 

NON-NECESSITATION OF THE DIVINE WILL. 

There is no conception from which the best elements 
of our nature so shrink as from the necessitarian concep- 
Necessitarian tion of God. Motive, in the finite, is cause, 

d£2n*Ji fiction 

of God. and volition effect; the effectuation being as 
absolute as the existence of deity. The idea of self- 
determining power, that is, of Will's power to will other 
than fixed effect, is expelled the universe. All movement 
is but a being moved, all activity is but a passivity. All 
this finite metaphysical machinery, then being transferred 
to God, is simply rendered infinite. God is thus an in- 
finite substance, with no power but to be passively moved 
as external causation acts upon him. Necessity takes 
her stand-point outside, and presses her causative forces 
upon his being. Deity is a clay moulded in the matrice 
of external causation, and hardened to solidity — an infi- 
nite adamantinized fossil inclosed in a tight casement of 
eternal fatalism. 

Exterior circumscribing Causation is thus the God of 
God. It limits his power to one sole volition, and to one 
sole stereotyped set of volitions ; and his volitions limit 
his power of actions. Omnipotence, then, is not power 
to do all things ; it is only power for doing what is done; 
power for fulfilling the programme of prescribing causa- 
tion. Do you ask what God can do? Just what he 
does do, and nothing else. Do you ask why God does 
thus ? There is in him no causal fountain of power for 
anything else. Do you ask why God does no more, no 
less? The actual is the exact measure and cdmplete 
exhaustive of his power. The whole process of things is 
the solely possible projectile from the divine nature as it 
is. All the causality there is in God goes forth into pre- 



Sect. 3.] FREEDOM OF DIVINE WILL. 313 

cisely all the effect to which it is equal. God and not-God 
are fixed correlatives ; absolute counterparts of each other. 
Neither can exist without the other ; neither can exist, 
in substance, form, act, or position, other than it act- 
ually is. 

Edwards bases his argument for the existence of neces- 
sitated meritoriousness in man upon its existence in God ; 
and its existence in God he first bases upon Arminian con- 
cessions. u Arminian writers in general hold," says Ed- 
wards, " that there is no virtue or vice, reward or punish- 
ment, nothing to be commended or blamed, without this 
freedom. And yet Dr. Whitby allows that God is with- 
out this freedom ; and Arminians generally ac- Arminian con . 
knowledge that God is necessarily holy, and cessions - 
his will necessarily determined to that which is good. 
So that putting these things together, the infinitely holy 
God, who always used to be esteemed by God's people 
not only virtuous, but a being in whom is all possible 
virtue, etc., this being, according to this notion of Dr. 
Whitby and other Arminians, etc., is deserving of no 
commendation or praise." 

If the premises here be admitted, the consequences 
irresistibly follow. If from his physical substance, or 
from his necessary attributes or dispositions, Theirconse- 
surrounding motives necessitatively cause the <* uences - 
divine volitions to be right ; if by dynamics as fixing as 
physical dynamics, the divine choice and action are abso- 
lutely limited to a certain unit, then the divine being is 
an infinite, excellent machine, good because he cannot 
help it; and because he cannot help it, without moral 
desert. 

It is not, however, so clear that Arminian writers really 
intend to grant that necessity of the divine Will. They 
have unwisely dallied with the nonsensical term moral 
necessity, sometimes even admitting its non- Are these con- 
sense. Thus, Dr. Samuel Clark says, after ° essi o™reai? 
attributing moral necessity to God, " moral necessity is 



314 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part IT, 

distinguished from physical necessity, just as all other 
figures of speech are from literal expressions : that is, 
'tis in truth and philosophically speaking no necessity at 
all" If, we reply, moral necessity is no necessity at all, 
then it is no moral necessity at all / that is, there is no 
moral necessity ; and the term is nonsense. "And yet," 
adds Dr. Clark, " every one easily sees that the justice 
and goodness of an infinitely perfect Free Agent may as 
firmly and reasonably be relied on as the necessary effect 
of any necessary agent is known to be physically una- 
voidable." Let our readers compare this with what 
we have said under the topics of uniformities of volition, 
and he will easily see that Dr. Clark here states about 
correctly what we consider to be the true doctrine. Re- 
jecting the deceptive term moral necessity, upon which 
Edwards mostly builds his argument, we maintain that 
the rectitude of God's actions is what we may call per- 
fectly probable and certain, practically reliable as any 
physical necessity, without admitting that the nexus 
is the same or equally irreversible, and strictly admitting 
the power of contrary choice. We may add that Fletch- 
Armmian po- er > wm ^ e indulging the same unwise use of the 

sitions. word necessity, where there confessedly is no 

necessity, denies that this necessity is "absolute." He 
hits the point very closely when he says, (vol. ii, p. 197,) 
" God's goodness consists in the perfect rectitude of his 
eternal Will" (his eternal will-mg we would say,) " and 
not in a want of power to do an act of injustice." In 
Fletcher's phraseology the words "do an act" include 
the volitional as well as the voluntary act. 

"If the divine Will," Edwards next argues, (p. 331,) 
" was not necessarily determined to that which in every 
case is wisest and best, it must be subject to some degree 
Edwards's ar- °^ undesigning contingence, and so in the same 

gument. degree liable to evil." Such is the inveterate 
necessitarian conception. The divine Will must be " nee- 



Sect. 3.] FREEDOM OF DIVINE WILL. 315 

essarily determined" one way, or be "subject" and 
"liable" to some other way. It is a lifeless swivel, 
whirling under one causation or another. And this ne- 
cessity, Edwards continues, is no more degrading than 
his "necessity" of "existence;" and so we suppose it is 
no more degrading, or divesting of responsible attributes, 
for any agent to have a necessitated Will than a necessi- 
tated existence. And so, according to Edwards, to sup- 
pose the divine volitions as necessary as the divine self- 
existence would no way affect their meritoriousness. 
And the Younger Edwards explicitly Divine volitions 

i . . i -m i • t / ^ -, \ necessary as self- 

expresses what the Elder indicates, (p. 321,) existence. 
" The truth is, the divine volitions toere no more caused, 
whether by God himself or by any other cause, than the 
divine existence was. The divine volitions are the divine 
holiness uncreated and self-existent. And one attribute 
of God is not more caused or created than all his attri- 
butes, or than his existence." So that God's volitions 
are part of God's nature, as fixed as his self-existence ! 

And yet these same Edwardses every now and then 
have a lucid interval, in which they tell us that this 
necessity of theirs is nothing more than certainty! And 
their apologizing followers tell us that they taught " the 
highest kind of freedom," perfectly consistent with a 
power of diverse volition ! It is very odious to attribute 
fatalism to them ! We answer, their certainty is just the 
certainty of God's self-existence / their power of diverse 
volition is just the power of God's substance The conse(luent 
to be transmuted or substituted ; and the at- fatalism - 
tribution of these fixednesses to responsible human voli- 
tions is called by a soft name when termed fatalism. 
And then deity himself is but an adamantine statue of a 
God, run in tho mould of absolute Causation ; excellent 
because he cannot help it ; automatically excellent, but 
incapable of attaining a particle of moral desert. 

We, in opposition to all this, suppose the God of the 
Universe to be an infinitely free, excellent, meritorious 



316 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 
True doctrine, Person. We can as easily conceive an infinite 

God a free • \ , t-» ,-i-it i -i 

person. omnipotent Person to be bad as to be good. 
Infinity and Goodness are not inseparable ideas as at- 
tributable to a being. To prove the goodness of God to the 
naturalist has been a problem for the theologian. Manes 
had no difficulty in conceiving a bad deity, or in commu- 
nicating the conception to others. Zoroaster, as the latest 
Deity not nee- researches reveal, held that good and evil are 

essarily con- . . ., „ _ . __, . 

ceivedgood. opposite sides of deity. I he Infinite of the 
Pantheist is all comprehending, of evil and of good alike. 
Nay, Calvinism itself has never yet been able to extricate 
itself from the charge of placing the intentional primor- 
dial authorship of evil in God. But we Arminians hold 
that God is freely good from eternity to eternity, just as a 
man is good freely and alternatively for one hour. In- 
finite knowledge does not insure infinite goodness. In- 
finite knowledge (which is a very different thing from 
infinite wisdom) is not an anterior cause of infinite good- 
ness ; but both Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Holiness con- 
sist iist and result from God's volitions eternally, and ab- 
solutely perfectly, coinciding with, not the Wrong, but 
the Right. God's infinite knowledge=omniscience is an 
eternal fixed necessary be-ing ; God's wisdom and holi- 
ness are an eternal volitional becoming ; an eternal free, 
alternative putting forth of choices for the Right. 
God's omniscience is self-existent; God's wisdom and 
holiness are self-made, or eternally and continuously be- 
ing made. God is necessarily omnipotent and all-know- 
ing through eternity ; but God is truly wise and holy 
through all eternity, but no more necessarily than a man 
through a single hour. God is holy therefore not automat- 
ically but freely ; not merely with infinite excellence, but 
with infinite meritoriousness. 

God is holy in that he freely chooses to make his own 
God's infinite happiness in eternal Right. Whether he could 
tionaiiyfree^ not make himself equally happy in Wrong is 
more than we can say. And, as we have elsewhere said, 



Sect. 3.] FREEDOM OF DIVINE WILL. 317 

it is the agent that often makes his motive,* so between 
the infinite pleasure of infinite selfishness and evil and 
the infinite blessedness of infinite benevolence and good, 
God renders himself eternally holy by his eternal volition 
preferring good from the motive good, the same good 
being both motive and object, preferred for itself. As 
therefore to God's omniscience there belongs an eternal 
necessary and excellent permanence, so to God's holiness 
there belongs an eternal free meritorious continuing. 

It hence follows that the unchanging right choices of 
God do not come under any Law of Invariable Sequence, 
nor are they to be included as under any fixed Law of 
sequence whatever. Dr. Hitchcock \ maintains that mir- 
acles are as truly under law as ordinary events, because 
God would by the law of his Will choose to interfere 
ever and always in the same circumstances. Thus the 
law of causation upon natural events and upon the divine 
volitions is identical or equal. We reply that eternity 
bears to God the same relation as an hour bears to man ; 
and it no more follows that God's volitions are bound by 
a fixed law from his willing eternally right, than it fol- 
lows that man's volitions are by fixed law because he 
wills right through sixty times sixty seconds. 

It is President Day, if we rightly recollect, who argues 
that it is only from the doctrine of necessity that Divine neces- 
we can be sure of the unchangeable holiness of to reliability? 
God. Truly such a position is a very bold putting the 
Eternal under necessitarian bonds for good behavior. 
We repose in perfect security, notwithstanding our free- 
domism, upon the unchanging integrity of many 3, merely 
human free-agent, much more upon the unchanging holi- 
ness of the God of ages. 

And how knows a finite insect, like us, that in the 
course of ages the motives in the Universe may not 
prove strongest for divine apostacy to evil ? And not 
If God can be supposed by Dr. Day thus to reliable - 
* See p. 177. t Bibliotheca Sacra. 



318 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

apostatize on the hypothesis of subjective freedom, why- 
may I not fear on the hypothesis of external subjection 
to motive ? I can as readily suppose that motives may so 
change as to change the divine Will, as to suppose that 
the divine free will should change in view of the motives. 
Our reliance in this case depends more upon the firm- 
ness of our faith than upon the firmness of the object of 
True ground our fa^h. Dr. Day could no more know that 
of reliance. q & fa necessitated than I can know the cer- 
tainty of his holiness. But if I can trust that the Eternal 
never will apostatize, just as firmly as he can trust that 
he never can, my ground of repose is as good as his. 
The goodness of the ground in both cases depends upon 
the reliability of the fact. Finite reliances are generally 
based upon probabilities. A trust in God's unchangm^- 
ness is as good as a trust in God's unchangeaSfcness. 



CHAPTEE YII. 

FREEDOM LIMITS NOT OMNIPOTENCE. 

Sound philosophers of all sects or parties are obliged 
. . A to concede that the power of performing con- 

Omnipotence t L r ° 

cont?ad e ie- to tradictions forms no part of the true idea of 
tions. omnipotence. A contradiction unsays itself 

and becomes nothing. The contradictory act is equally 
self-canceling, and so no act at all. When we say God 
is potential to do all things, it is unnecessary in terms 
even to exclude contradictions ; it is unnecessary to say 
that " God can do all things but cannot do any act 
which is no act at all." The exclusion of contradictions 
from divine power limits not omnipotence itself, but lim- 
its our thoughts to the true idea of omnipotence. 

If contradictions can be accomplished by Omnipotence, 



Sect. 8.] FBEEDOM LIMITS NOT OMNIPOTENCE. 319 

then all reasoning is at end. The logical law of non-con- 
tradiction is no longer valid, if it be reversible by power. 
We can bind no reasoning around a power which can 
dissolve all reasoning. The syllogism is no longer a nec- 
essary argument ; and geometry is a pile of contingen- 
cies. Theology lies in ruins. If Omnipotence can per- 
form all contradictions, then the self-existent Such power 
can destroy itself, and cause itself never to have absurd - 
existed. And after this state of self-annihilation, it may 
cause all events to happen without cause, being at the 
same time fully omnipotent and yet without existence. 
God can also on the same supposition govern the world 
with perfect wisdom and power, without any plan, 
purpose, decree, predestination or knowledge. And, 
finally, on the same supposition he can leave the creature 
free to choose either way in full defiance of his utmost 
power, without any derogation from his omnipotence 
or perfect sovereignty. 

That a being should be left free to choose either of 
several ways, yet be previously secured by Necessity and 

„ . . „ . freedom con- 

necessitative causation finite or infinite, to tradictory. 
choose a certain one of those ways so that there is no 
power of choosing otherwise than that one is a contra- 
diction. It supposes that the same act is in the same 
sense at once possible and impossible. The power there- 
fore to leave the Will free, and yet efficiently preordain, 
preform, or prenecessitate the volition being a contradic- 
tion, is not predicable even of a true omnipotence. 

Necessitarians ordinarily argue that the supposition of 
an agent able to act either way by a power God , s non . 
implanted within him is to suppose him placed Ef e n ° f t p n™ 
out from the control of God. But the supposi- p0Si 
tion does not imply God's non+possession of absolute 
power over the agent, but simply his self-imposed non- 
usance — non-usance upon principle and by rule — of cer- 
tain power. 

Such self-limiting laws — prescribed by God to himself 



S20 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

— necessitarians will not deny to be necessary to the very 
in natural existence of the kingdom of nature ; and they 
kingdom. ^ j n f act gj ve q q ^ j^ p 0S iti n as a Sovereign 

of nature. Such a divine law of non-usance of power is * 
still more necessary in the kingdom of living agents, and 
most of all in the realm of responsible agents ; it being 
observable that the more close the divine self-restraint, 
and the larger the amount of powers in the agent left 
untouched, the- more the created system rises in dignity, 
and the higher God appears as a Sovereign. Even in a 
system of living necessitated agents, as necessitarians 
in a kingdom must admit, God forbids himself to disturb the 
ed agents. agent's uniform and perpetual acting accord- 
ing to strongest motive. And if this self-prescribed Law 
of non-interference and non-usance places the being out of 
God's power, it is as rigidly and servilely done in God's 
binding himself not to touch the processes of necessitated 
agency as of free-agency. The volitions of a Will neces- 
sitated by a highest motive are as truly and inviolably 
out of the divine power as the volitions of a free Will. 
A necessitated Will obeys the law of highest motive; 
and omnipotence itself cannot prevent it, in the case, with- 
out violating that law. Unless he violates his own law, 
God is obliged to attain a desired volition of the agent by 
somehow contriving to get the proper strongest motive 
before the agent. If this cannot be done, it is, according 
to necessitarianism, wholly out of God's power. The Cal- 
vinistic Confession of Faith declares, " nor is the liberty 
or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather 
established;" which cannot be true unless God, by funda- 
mental law, abstains from taking it away, and leaves such 
causes to their own unviolated action ; just as freedomists 
suppose God to do with free agents. Necessitarianism, 
therefore, places the agent out of God's power, and 
diminishes his absolute sovereignty as much as Armin- 
ianism. 

Against the Arminian doctrine, that there is an intrinsic 



Sect. 3.] FREEDOM LIMITS NOT OMNIPOTENCE. 321 

contradiction between the necessitation and the respon- 
sibility of a volition, and that therefore it is impossible 
even for God to make it responsible, Calvin- Calvmian self . 
' ists contradictorily object. For they themselves contradiction - 
equally hold that for a being not a moral agent to be 
held morally responsible is a contradiction, and so im- 
possible even to divine power. The disagreement thus 
is not, as they often seem to fancy, about the existence 
of a contradiction between responsibility and the non- 
existence of moral agency, and the consequent impossi- 
bility for even Omnipotence to create such a responsibility. 
Here they agree with freedomists. The real difference is 
as to what constitutes moral agency, and what are the 
terms of the contradiction. Freedomists hold that altern- 
ative power is one of those terms, and necessitarians 
deny. 

We do not found the justification of God for the non- 
prevention of sin upon tjie absolute, universal Free special act 

.,.,.,. , /,-,,, sometimes at- 

lmpossibility, m any and every case, of God s tamable. 
attaining desirable free action on the part of the agent. 
In countless numbers of instances God foreknows that 
certain motives will be the motives freely and alterna- 
tively accepted by the agent. Yet it is not clear that in 
the best possible system Omnipotence could, consistently 
with universal unviolated free-agency, exclude all sin. 
And it is apparent, in myriads of instances, that the par- 
ticular sin in the circumstances could not have 

Not &lw&vs 

been prevented without a change of circum- 
stances, or a violation of free-agency. And this the ne- 
cessitarian must also admit in his own system. In given 
circumstances the necessitated agent must obey the 
strongest motive ; and God cannot prevent it but either 
by a change of circumstances, or a violation of the agent's 
laws of action. 

In regard to the justification of the Divine non-pre- 
vention of sin we suppose three principles : sin in a divine 

1. A system of free probationary agents is system - 

21 



322 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

doubtless primordially better than a system of necessi- 
tated automatic agents, even though such free agency 
imply the possibility of sin. 

2. In a probationary system the sin is not better than 
no sin, yet the non-prevention of sin is doubtless better 
than its prevention. 

3. The present is doubtless the best possible system, 
in spite, not in consequence, of the actuality of sin. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

FREEDOM EXALTS MAN AND DISHONORS GOD? 

It is one of the deep sayings of Whichcote, " Liberum 
arbitrium, Free Will, which men so brag of, as it includes 
is Freedom im- P oss ^ male ■ agere, the ability to do evil, is an 
perfection? Imperfection: for such liberty or power is not 
in God. To do amiss is not Power, but Deficiency and 
Deformity ; and infinite Power includes not in it a Possi- 
bility of evil." It is a contrary saying, not so deep, of 
another writer, (in a foreign Quarterly Review,) "Pela- 
gianism, and Arminianism, and modern Morrisonianism 
or a super- pander to the pride of human Will ; and to 
fection? exalt man's Will would deny Will to God, 
negativing the decrees of God, and nullifying the Spirit's 
influence and special grace." Neither of these sayings, 
the deep one of the philosopher and the shallow one of 
the ranter, expresses the exact truth. It is not the 
power to do evil which is an imperfection ; if it Were, a 
statue would be in this respect superior to the first angels 
before they fell ; but it is the evil exercise of that power 
which is the deficiency and the deformity. He who is 
right from incapacity is safely, but not nobly, 
nor meritoriously, right. It is the height of 



Sect. 3.] EXALTS MAN, DISHONORS GOD. 323 

virtue to be in full possession of the mastery of both 
good and of evil, and yet to do good alone. Such a mas- 
tery and supremacy belong in the highest degree to 
God. For it is eternally that he possesses full power for 
choice of right or wrong; and it is eternally that he 
chooses solely right. 

" To exalt man's will," which is the charge of the above 
ranter, is to exalt man in that respect in which Freedom exalts 

i /.n m t • i • i to probation- 

he is in " the image of God, and in which to ary level. 

depreciate hini below his measure is to dishonor his 
Original. But when we so exalt man's Will it is not 
merely to assert his dignity of nature, which in its place 
is a just procedure, but to show him responsible for his 
deeds, and to justify God in his judgments. It is indeed 
an exalted prerogative to be a responsible subject of the 
Government of God ; and it is but honoring that govern- 
ment to place in its full relief that faculty in which does 
mainly lie the qualification for that high citizenship. It 
is a foolish way, worthy the narrowness of a bigot, for 
the sake of humbling human pride to depreciate man's 
intellect and make him a brute, or to nullify his free 
agency and make him a block or a clock. The freedom 
of the Will in the moral agent does thus furnish the true 
condition for the moral government of God. 

As living being is superior to insensate matter, and 
intellectual is superior to living animal being, so of intel- 
lectual the highest is free moral being. So far as we 
know, the highest declarative glory of God consists in 
the existence of his retributive moral government. But 
the very existence of such a government requires of God 
the concession to his creature of a power which in its 
course of action he will neither annihilate nor violate; 
leaving the capability, but not the necessity, of freedom 
to guilt, which is judicable, or freedom to good desert, 
which is rewardable, and of a free holiness, worship, 
honor, and glorification of God, which are the highest 
result of a moral kingdom. 



324 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED, [Part II, 

The denying the freedom of man does not honor but 
degrade God's sovereignty, sinking him from the posi- 
tion of a Ruler of free subjects to a manipulator of mech- 
Man's unfree- anisms. It takes from him the possibility of 

dom degrades ... .. , . .,, ... 

God. justice by making him propel the act he is to 

punish. Nor is there any ascription of meanness to God 
more mean than that which makes him attempt to inau- 
gurate a glorious free probationary system, and yet to 
fail, purely from a penurious grudging of the necessary 
bestowment of power to constitute a true responsible 
agent, and from a fear that the possession of an alterna- 
tive power of Will by the finite agent might disturb the 
stability of the throne of the Omnipotent. The former 
is a parsimony, and the latter a cowardice, which it is 
discreditable to any man to ascribe to the God of the 
universe. 

If the maintenance of freedom of the Will "exalts 
man's Will," and the denial of it degrades the dignity 
Unfreedom of man's Will, the same denial must de- 
grading, grade the dignity of the Divine Will. The 
assertion, therefore, of the necessitation of the divine 
Will, so strenuously maintained by Edwards and other 
necessitarians, does bring degradation and dishonor 
upon the divine Will. While, on the other hand, to 
maintain the freedom of the divine Will from any such 
causative determination of volitions is to maintain its 
dignity and honor. 

Another argument against this view of divine sover- 
eignty maintains that it is a supposition unworthy the 
divine dignity that any of his decrees or actions should be 
dependent upon the action or non-action of insignificant 
man. The assumption, we reply, that the action of God 
God's depend- cannot be conditioned on the action or other 

ence on finite *••/»• '■% • • //»• it 

actions. matter of a finite being, (for it cannot be lim- 

ited to the action, but must extend to every finite attri- 
bute of the creature,) renders creation, preservation, gov- 
ernment, retribution all alike impossible. In such case 



Sect. 3.] EXALTS -MAN, DISHONORS GOD. 325 

God cannot create a finite being, for the act of creation 
must be modified by, and conditioned upon the nature 
of the finite to be created. If he is to be one sort of a 
creature, one sort of creation must be performed ; if 
another, another. Preservation also must depend upon 
the actual existence, nature, and purpose of the creature 
to be preserved. Government requires laws which must 
depend upon the nature of the being or thing to be gov- 
erned. No regard must be paid by God to prayer; 
nothing must take place in consequence of the prayers 
of the holiest finite being; for that would be making 
God's action dependent upon the action of a finite being, 
obliging him to wait until man performs before he can 
act. Nor can men be rewarded according to their 
works, blessed with heaven upon a life of faith and 
holiness, or cursed with hell on account of a life of wick- 
edness. Such a doctrine shuts the Deity up in a digni- 
fied reserve from all the concerns of his creatures, making 
his sovereignty too exalted to be any sovereign at all. 
Nay, it deprives him of the power of producing any 
creatures, rendering a finite universe impossible. 

Freedom is also held by necessitarians as attributing 
to man merit in exercising the act of faith and perform- 
ing the conditions of salvation, so that heaven is attained 
not by grace but by works. We reply, 

1. By their own maxim of desert necessitarians are as 
truly obliged to attribute merit to faith and Ne cessitarian 
works as freedomists. By that maxim it matters mSi?to n of 
not how we come by our right volitions / wheth- man " 
er by necessitation, causation, predestination, or creation, 
they are equally deserving of reward or condemnation. 
No matter, then, if our faith and works be foreordained, 
necessitated, created by the resistless influences of the 
Spirit, they are still volitions ; are free with the highest 
degree of freedom conceivable, and are to be credited 
with all the merit, good desert, and rewardableness that 



326 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

the loftiest Arminian can conceive. So that all the glory 
that Calvinism claims to itself for overthrowing human 
merit is thus by itself overthrown. It teaches by its 
fundamental maxim of merit the meritoriousness of hu- 
man faith and works , and the attainment of salvation by 
our own good desert. 

2. Faith is excellent and well-deserving. It would be 
How faith derogatory to God to suppose that he would 

meritorious. not cnoose a g 00 d and excellent act as an an- 
tecedent to our justification. As between good and bad, 
faith is good and not bad ; it is ethically right and not 
wrong. Unbelief infidelity are wrong ; faith and obedi- 
ence are right. The very reason why faith is a meet 
condition for salvation, and a right initiation of a holy 
life, is that it is in itself a self-surrender and self-conse- 
cration to God and to all goodness. Performed in the 
use of a previous gracious aid, it is ethically meritorious ; 
and there is a just and right sense in which we may be 
said to be justified for the merit of our faith and to be 
saved by a good work. And yet, 

3. Such is not the merit of our faith that we thereby 
intrinsically deserve justification ; nor such the merit of 
our good works as that we thereby earn eternal life. 
How salvation Notwithstanding our faith, God, apart from his 

not merited. g rac i ous promises, is under no obligation to 
forgive our past sins ; nor do our works form any pur- 
chase of so great a gift as heaven and endless glory. 
Absolutely at the moment of an act of complete faith 
God needs us not, and he might justly drop us into non- 
existence. So that after all we are his workmanship, and 
all our salvation is from the free and abundant grace of 
God. 

If man's act of accepting faith be not free and alterna- 
unfree faith ^ ve 5 a ^^ e to ^ e withheld as to be put forth, 
Svemment? possessing the freedom from as well as the 
auomaic. f ree( j om ^ t k en there is possible no divine 
government, but only an automatism. If man's will, in 



Sect.3.J [RESPONSIBILITY OF OBDURATES. 327 

the given case, accept divine grace, either by an intrinsic 
automatic spring of the Will, or by an omnipotent secur- 
•ative touch of the spring of the Will by the divine fin- 
ger, then the very conditions of a free probationary sys- 
tem are destroyed. Men are the mechanically moving 
figures of a great panorama, and God himself is but a 
mechanical counterpart — both forming one stupendous 
reciprocal interactive automatism. Herein, Dr. Chal- 
mers* assures us, lies the vital point of difference be- 
tween Calvinism and Arminianism ; and herein, we reply, 
lies the difference between a divine government and an 
automatism. 



CHAPTEE IX. 



RESPONSIBILITY OF OBDURATES AND OF FALLEN 

MAN. 

Arminians grant, says Edwards, that both obdurate 
sinners given over to their own hardness, and obdlirates and 
the whole race as fallen and without the atone- Fallen Man - 
ment, are unable to keep God's law, and yet are inex- 
cusable. If so, then Arminians accept the principle that 
necessitatrBii is consistent with responsibility, and that 
commands are consistent with inability to obey.f We 
take the two, the cases of the obdurates, and of the fall- 
en race, separately. 

I. In regard to obdurates, we are led to the discussion 
of these Two Questions : 

1. What is the influence of the self-superinduction 

* Notes on HilFs Lectures, Book iv, chap. viii. 

t It should be noted by the reader that Edwards selects as instances 
of necessitated guilt by Arminian admission the cases of the Will of 
Christ, the Divine Will, the Obdurates, the Fallen Eace, and the Damned 
in hell. The first he considers the most decisive. The argument, as 
well as our reply, in the last two cases being essentially the same, we 
add nothing further upon the last. 



328 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

of obduracy and irrecoverability upon the sinner's re- 
sponsibility ? 

2. How far does the intensity of temptation excuse 
the sin? 

1. From the Arminian admission of the responsible 
obduracy and obduracy and guilty irrecoverability of the 

necessity. abandoned sinner, Edwards holds them to the 
universal admission that necessitation to sin is perfectly 
consistent with responsibility for sin. To which the Ar- 
minian replies, conclusively we think, with the broad 
Seif-superin- m & x i m 5 The superinduction by the sinner's own 

duction. j» ree ac ^ or course j> ctc tion, of necessity upon 

himself to sin destroys the excuse from that necessity.* 
The guilty beings given over by God are first freely, 
fully, and irrevocably given over by themselves. They 
have once for all made their own selection, have rejected 
God, renounced conscience, made evil their good, and 
divested themselves of all susceptibility to moral motive. 
Such a result, with all its irrevocability, was not necessarily 
hut freely chosen. Their very condition of necessitated 
guilt was not necessitated. That self-necessitation is an 
object of choice, and is freely chosen and so responsibly 
chosen; just as any other object is freely and responsibly 
chosen. The alternative to 'choose freedom to all good, 
isthe basis of or necessity to all evil, was before* them, and 
biiity. they chose the latter. They are therefore re- 

sponsible for that choice according to its nature, guilt, 
and magnitude. 

Even the necessitarian admits this excuse from self 
Necessitarian- super induction. Necessity of coaction, that 

ism admits Su- . , A it . ,i -rxr'-n 

perinduced is, necessity upon body against the- Will, says 
sponsible. necessitarianism, does excuse ; for if a man be 
imprisoned he cannot be required to take a journey. 
But if he has locked himself in prison and flung the key 
from his window into the ocean beating against his prison 
wall, necessitarianism admits that he is not then excusa- 
* See pp. 168, 400. 



Sect. 3.] RESPONSIBILITY OF OBDURATES. 329 

ble. If a parent tie his child to the bed-post he cannot 
require him to go to school ; but if the child have tied 
himself even with a knot he cannot unloose, necessita- 
rianism admits that the excuse is invalid. Edwards has 
set the example of reasoning from the parallelism be- 
tween this his so-called natural necessity to the moral* 
and we follow precedent so authoritative. As the neces- 
sitarian argues that though natural necessity excuses, yet 
self-superinduction invalidates the excuse; so So superin . 
we have a right by parity to argue, that the t1o£l?nJc°es" 
volitional necessity excuses, yet the self-super- Slty * 
induction of that necessity, where it did not before ex- 
ist, invalidates the excuse, and leaves the agent respons- 
ible for his whole amount of self-necessitated sin and 
guilt. 

If a man performing a dangerous journey in a dark 
night extinguishes his lantern, he cannot plead darkness 
as his excuse for the suicide wrought by falling down a 
precipice. No more can he who extinguishes the lamp 
of knowledge which preserves him from the precipice of 
woe plead ignorance. No more can he who eradicates 
from his own nature the powers by which to avoid mo- 
tive to sin and work righteousness plead impotence. 

We may suppose a free being born under conditions 
of free moral self-development to be self- Se if_deveioped 
wrought to a state of high perfection. So has he vh * tue * 
trained his own nature by dropping all evil indulgences, 
that all evil propensities are lost ; and so has he formed his 
taste to good that none but motives of good can reach 
him. His habits are so perfected thereby that tempta- 
tion ceases ; he does right without effort, and ultimately 
even can no more do wrong than I can enjoy the central 
heat of a fiery furnace. The merit of virtue does not 
cease when its power is so perfect that its contest is over. 
Admitting the agent to be now necessarily right, his 
effortless virtue is none the less meritorious because it 
*Seep. 411, 



330 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

has become spontaneous. The merit of his virtue does 
>iot cease as soon as he has perfected it. It has been 
earned as a great good ; and considering his entirety of be- 
ing as a unit, it has been and is a freely chosen good, 
and it bears the stamp of freedom and praisewoH&y good- 
ness through eternity. It is a settled point in orthodox 
eschatology that an eternity of good or ill may be respons- 
ibly chosen. Or if a being so self-developing freely chooses 
a . a permanent and eternal evil nature, by cherish- 

Andvice. . x 7 J 

ing evil tastes and habits until his very sub- 
stance has crystallized with sin, and the entire nature has 
so become correlative to wicked motive that it is sus- 
ceptible of no motive for good, its badness is eternally 
guilty. A being created or born with both these alter- 
natives accessible to his choice, with equipollent ability 
of will to choose either, is in full consistency with our 
doctrine, eternally rewardable for choosing the right, 
eternally responsible for choosing the wrong. 

Responsibility for necessitated inclinations is one 
Responsible thing; responsibility for self-superinduced in- 
suptSnducs' clinations is another thing. Responsibility for 

necessitated inclinations induced by original, 
concreated, and permanent necessitation is one thing; 
and responsibility for necessitated inclinations, freely and 
unnecessitatedly taken upon himself by the individual, is 
another thing. Responsibility for inclination never in 
the power of the individual to change or exclude is one 
thing; responsibility for inclination alternatively cherished 
in the nature is another thing. Edwards, with a strik- 
ing want of perspicacity, argues as if these two responsi- 
bilities are equal and one. The former responsibility is 
a nothing and an impossibility; the latter is a living 
reality. 

Whitby, however, (perhaps to evade the irresponsi- 
bility resulting from necessity,) maintains that the ref- 
ormation of the sinner abandoned of God is not truly 



Sect. 3.] RESPONSIBILITY OF OBDURATES. 331 

impossible but very difficult. Then, replies Edwards, if 
impossibility or necessity entirely excuses, difficulty pro- 
portionately excuses. From the amount of impossibility 

., •! i • n 1 an( * difficul- 

guilt apparent, strike the equivalent ot the ty for right. 
difficulty, and you have as remainder the amount of the 
guilt actual. Hence the conclusion, which would be ne- 
cessitated from the Arminian principle, that volitional 
impossibility excuses is this : moral=volitional difficulty 
excuses as truly as natural=corporeal difficulty. But 
this conclusion, says Edwards, is notoriously false; for 
in truth it is an indubitable principle that while physical 
difficulty excuses, volitional does not ; and from that in- 
dubitable principle it is to be inferred that volitional im- 
possibility=necessity does not excuse. 

If, Edwards further argues, volitional difficulty of 
avoiding sin from intensity of seductive influences ex- 
cuses, then exposedness, predisposition, or lia- strong tempt _ 
bility to sin increases not the danger of guilt SSnfsSSd^" 
or condemnation. For the amount of liabili- 
ty^difficulty-of avoidance cancels just its own amount in 
guilt ; so that the case is no worse in result than if there 
were no exposedness, predisposition, liability, or difficulty 
at all. 

2. We must then institute our second inquiry, Sow 
far does the intensity of temptation or the volitional dif- 
ficulty of avoidance excuse sin f 

Volitional incapacity, we maintain, excuses for a want 
of volition as much as bodily impotence excuses for want 
of performance of external act. Where the impotence 
is in either case total, and not self-superinduced, and so 
the necessity absolute, the excuse is complete, and 
the agent blameless. Where in either case the impo- 
tence is self-superinduced, and in the degree that it is 
self-superinduced, the self-superinduction cancels the 
excuse. And the volitional as well as corpo- Volitionaldif . 
real overcoming great difficulties increases the g™ 1 ^ *% m 
merit of virtuous action. The overcoming of sert - 



332 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

powerful motives in the way opposed to choosing right, 
is as true an increase of desert as the overcoming of 
powerful physical obstacles opposed to the path of act- 
ing externally right. Yielding to feeble motives is an 
act of stronger depravity than the yielding to stronger 
motives. To choose evil, not only for the weakest mo- 
tives, but against the strongest motives, is the greatest 
depravity. On the other hand, to choose right for itself, 
and for no other motive than the rightness, is a pure 
virtue. So to choose in spite of strong motives is great 
good desert ; and the stronger the counter motives the 
greater the desert. The highest virtue is that which is 
for virtue itself against the strongest motives for evil. 
Hence the high heroic virtue of the martyrs, and the 
sufferers for good in all ages. Herein lay the greatness 
of the piety of Enoch and Noah, who walked with God 
in the time of universal corruption. Hence 
the meritorious virtue of Jesus himself in the 
Temptation, rejecting the very highest motives for evil 
that time and earth can present. Hence the sublime 
virtue of Milton's Abdiel, " faithful among the faithless, 
faithful only he." 

The authorities of the Bank of England one day 
received an anonymous note saying that the writer had 
access to their bullion room. Treating this as a hoax, 
they received, some days after, a second note, offering to 
meet a committee from their body, at any hour they 
pleased, in said room. The offer being accepted, at the 
hour appointed, being midnight, the committee were 
accordingly met by a man entering through* the floor by 
removal of a plank. He was a laborer who had discov- 
ered the entrance while repairing the sewers beneath. 
How' great was the temptation for so poor a man to 
make an unlawful fortune! The bank authorities re- 
warded his honesty with £800. But according to the 
theory of Edwards, contrary to common sense, he was 
no more meritorious than the millionaire who should 



Sect. 3.] RESPONSIBILITY OF OBDURATES. 833 

decline a shilling unintentionally overpaid him by a 
brother banker. But if the greater the motives to evil 
overcome the greater is the virtue, then the greater the 
motive-difficulty to good, the less the guilt. That is, 
moral or volitional difficulty does excuse according to 
its magnitude just as truly as natural or corporeal. 

And Edwards himself, when his argument requires it, 
readily and amply contradicts his own theory. One 
entire section of ten large pages, in his work on Orig- 
inal Sin, (Part III, sect. 8,) argues the greatness of 
human depravity from the greatness of the motive- 
force for good against which it sins. The proposition 
heading that section is, "The native depravity of man- 
kind appears in that there has been so little good effect 
of so manifold and great means used to promote virtue 
in the world." The opening sentence is, " The Edwards » s 
evidence of the native corruption of mankind concession - 
appears much more glaring when it is considered 
that the world has been so generally, so constantly, and 
so exceedingly corrupt, notwithstanding the various 
great and continual means that have been used to 
restrain men from sin, and promote virtue and true relig- 
ion among them." These means consist of methods, 
advantages, warnings, punishments, etc., all " to restrain 
men from sin and induce them to virtue ;" and all prop- 
erly comprehended under the name of motives, " mo- 
tives divine and powerful," and for that reason enhanc- 
ing the guilt of overcoming them. That is, the greater 
the resistance of motive the greater the guilt. The less 
the motive the less the guilt. The greater the difficulty 
of goodness, therefore, the less the guilt, whether that 
difficulty be corporeal or volitional. 

And at this point we may say that this position of 
Edwards overthrows all his claims of the con- „. 

J His position 

sistency of necessity with guilt, responsibility, £[ s e NeceIs s i- 
or desert. If the volitional difficulty of good tarianism - 
from counter motive-force extenuates guilt, then absolute 



334 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

impossibility destroys it. But according to necessita- 
rianism, in all cases where the Will chooses evilly, there 
is no power of contrary choice; that is, the contrary 
good choice was impossible, and therefore guiltless. 
There is no sin in the world, and a retributive divine 
government is an impossibility. 

We go further; we say that in strictness, it is voli- 

voiitionaidif- tional difficulty alone and not the corporeal 

cuses rather which excuses. Corporeal difficulty excuses 

than corpo- 

real. only as it produces volitional difficulty. Strike 

out from consideration those external difficulties which 
render part of a complex action impossible. Let the case 
be where there is a difficulty to the performance of the en- 
tire action, considered as one whole — not an impossibility 
of a part — and the external difficulty excuses only as it 
requires great determination, that is, great exertion 
of volition, to perform it. The command, as Edwards 
at large and justly shows, lays its contact upon the Will.* 
What it requires is the volition. The corporeal act is 
only the external effect of the real energy of true vo- 
litional obedience or disobedience behind the exterior 
movement. Great exterior difficulty is powerful counter 
motive to be volitionally overcome. If we succeed, 
great proportionately is our merit or good desert; if 
we fail, some extenuation is caused of our guilt by the 
greatness of the counter motive-force, and in proportion 
to it. 

So long, however, as volition is truly free, and so long as 
the only necessity is self-superinduced, that freedom used 
for sin is basis of guilt. Motive, high or low, strong or 
weak, may only diminish or increase guilt; yet there 
will be guilt in the case, inexcusable and penal, so long as 
the Will is in the Conditions we have in the proper 
place stated of Volitional Alternativity. 

The last point made by Edwards, that since guilt 
diminishes in proportion to power of temptation it fol- 

* See p. 240. 



Sect. 3.] RESPONSIBILITY OF FALLEN MAN. 335 

lows that great exposure increases not the chances 
of guilt, has bearings worthy consideration. Our view 
may be stated in the following terms: 1. Tempta- 
tion, not absolutely necessitative in its power, does not 
excuse compliance, but sin and guilt remain. 2. It is not 
until the extremer intensity of motive until it is doubtful 
whether the point of necessity is reached that the excusa- 
tory power of motive discloses itself. The ordinary 
motivity like the ordinary difficulty and physical right 
action seem unexcusing. 3. " Exposedness " is the con- 
dition in which temptations to sin, we will say Exposure ex - 
of the ordinary motivity, are many and frequent. cuses sm - 
Its evil very much consists in the fact that the instances 
in which the motive might reasonably be resisted are 
multiplied. The guilts are therefore many and inexcus- 
able. Yet there does in such condition arise a collective 
"difficulty," a cyclical necessity, (p. 132,) which possesses 
some excusatory power. We may thence infer, what 
will be often relieving, in some degree, to a benevolent 
spirit, contemplating some sublunary scenes, that the true 
depth of guilt is often less, in apparently demoralized 
communities, than the superficial moral phenomena 
would seem to an unsparing judgment to indicate. How 
far the exclusion in such cases of truth, knowledge, 
moral motive, and the permanent presence of intense 
temptation and absolute necessitation, may lessen guilt, 
and so equalize the probational conditions of men, no 
human eye can gauge. This point will be discussed in a 
subsequent chapter. 

II. In regard to Ta£ Fallen Human Race, the charge 
of Edwards is, that Arminianism holds that though inca- 
pable of holiness, and so necessitated to sin, it is still 
responsible for sin, thereby contradicting its own doctrine 
of the incompatibility of necessitation with guilt. He 
argues, 

It is vain for Whitby to urge that the "Old Law" 



336 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

which requires Adamic perfection is abolished, and 
Edwards's tnat a new an ^ m ° r e merciful Law is intro- 
argument. <juced ^y Christ, requiring but "imperfect" 
obedience, and so inflicting no penalty for necessitated 
evil; for, 

1. There being, according to Arminianism, no guilt or 
sin for necessitated fallen man's not keeping the old Law, 
Christ's death and even the new law are needless. 

2. There can hereby be no responsible sin. Not by 
the " old law," for that is abolished ; not by the new 
law, for that requires but imperfect obedience, and so 
allows sin to be irresponsible. 

3. There can be no need for Christ to die to prevent 
unjust penalty for our not keeping a law which we had 
not power to keep. To all which we reply : 

1. The so-called "Old Law," being the standard of 

absolute right, can never be abolished, but 
must forever stand as the standard by which 

all responsible sinners are condemned, and to which all 

ultimate perfection must be equal. 

2. By the atonement, man being re-elevated to the 
level of responsibility, (beneath which he had sunk by 
the fall,) a new law, even the law of faith in Christ, is 
interposed, as a provisional standard of present accept- 
ance ; and man's present guilt for sin against the perfect 
Law being provided for by the atonement, aids and 
means are afforded for his final elevation to the complete 
standard of the perfect law. 

3. By these means the absolute law is never abolished 
but remains, as, 1. Demanding atonement for sin respons 
ibly committed by man after he is restored to his proba- 
tionary state, when the law of faith is not by him so 
accepted as to afford justification ; 2. Applying its own 
full standard of condemnation upon all sin not forgiven, 
through man's non-acceptance, by the law of faith; 
3. Remaining as the standard of perfection to which the 
remedial system must finally restore man, who, by using 



Sect. 3.J KESPONSIBILITY OF FALLEN MAN. 337 

offered gracious aid, accepts and complies with the gra- 
cious law of faith. 

4. By these means man is never responsible for a law 
he cannot meet ; Christ's death and the new law are de- 
manded by his case ; and all sin infringes both against 
the new law and the old. 

Edwards's final argument (which has become a staple 
in Calvinistic theology) is, that to furnish Abilityisjusticej 
ability to keep the law is a matter of justice, not ^ ace ? 
not grace. This "we have elsewhere amply answered.* 
We will simply reply here, that an item of justice in a 
system of grace, which is an item requisite to the ex- 
istence of the system, is itself a grace. Taken by itself 
alone, it may be but intrinsic justice ; taken as a part of 
a gracious and glorious whole, to whose existence it is 
requisite, it is gracious. If a millionaire graciously take 
an orphan boy, previously involved in ruin, into his serv- 
ice, and endow him with capital to be his commissioned 
agent, for the intentional end of bestowing on him the 
results in form of a munificent fortune, surely Isboth just and 
the first bestowing of the necessary capital gracious - 
(requisite though it be for the requiring any service or 
results, and so an act of justice in view of the require- 
ment) would be an act of great grace. 

Others have smartly argued that Christ's atonement, 
as placing us on a new foundation of responsibility, be- 
comes the cause of all our sin, so that we are "Damned by 
in fact "damned by grace." No doubt, we grace? " 
reply, those who abuse grace are " damned by grace." 
If either by the grace or gift of creation, of endowment 
with original powers, or of the redemptive atonement, 
we are raised to the level of responsibility, captious rea- 
soners may attribute all the resultant sin, evil, and damna- 
tion to the grace. And this attribution is just if they 

* Methodist Quarterly Review, October, 1861, p. 661. 
22 



338 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

result by volitional or non-volitional necessity. But when 
the unnecessitated Will perverts the grace to evil and 
damnatory uses, as we have elsewhere said, it primor- 
dially originates the wrong; and the sin, wickedness, 
and damnability, as taking their primal start with that 
origination, cannot be traced back responsibly to the 
Grace. 



CHAPTEE X. 

THE FREE APPROPRIATION OF OUR DEPRAVED 
NATURE. 

Our position is that a hereditary depravity introduced 
into our nature, necessitating us to sin, however demor- 
alizing it may be, is not responsible or guilty. The 
How and how question then may arise, In what manner, and 
Sadeownlnd how f ar > mav out natural depravity be by us 
responsible. p ersona Uy s0 appropriated as that we can be 

held therefor accountable ? The obvious answer is, That 
it is by our own free personal acceptance of it, and just 
so far as that acceptance extends. As, for what a man 
freely chooses to do, so for what lie chooses to be, he is 
liable to a just account. To these \iews difficulties are 
objected ; by none more ably than by Dr. Julius Miiller 
in his Doctrine of Sin, whose views will be taken into 
consideration in our following remarks. 

Dr. Miiller asks : Could the volition which appropri- 
ates the guilt of our depravity be withheld ? If so, how 
Muiier'sob- comes it that guilt and sin are absolutely uni- 
jections. ve rsal ? And why is it that so momentous a 
volition, forming the crisis of our history, should be lost 
to our conscious memory? And how is it that, prac- 
tically, in the blended impulses and volitions of our daily 
moral life, it is impossible to draw a clear distinction 



Sect. 3.] APPROPKIATION OF RESPONSIBILITY. 339 

between our responsible and irresponsible sins, so that 
our conscience unhesitatingly passes a common condem- 
nation upon the entire mass ? 

It is not necessary to our argument, we may respond, 
that we should be able to take a precise and infallible 
^diagnosis of the moral history or moral status of our in- 
fancy and childhood, on which Scripture furnishes so 
little light, and of which our conscious memory retains 
so little trace. Assuming the gracious condition of child- 
hood, w r e know not what amount of conscious avoidable 
sin is requisite to banish the grace of that period and 
finish our young apostasy. Points of our 0urmoralcrises 
existence, recorded as crises of our history in notmarked - 
the registry of heaven, are not testified to our conscious- 
ness by any sensible warning or shock. Not always is 
the moment of adult regeneration, or of the abandon- 
ment to obduracy, or perhaps even the unpardonable sin, 
evidenced to the soul. But of the sin which appropri- 
ates the sin of our nature, our axiomatic principles re- 
quire us to affirm that it is free and avoid- Appropriative 
able. Yet back of that freedom we admit that necessaiy. 
there is a necessity that insures that, sooner or later, 
the free act of appropriation will be made. It is in this 
fact that the freedom and the universality of this fall are 
found to be reconciled. We have elsewhere noted* that 
to average free agents, as probationary men are, the con- 
stant presence of a powerful temptation often insures that 
sooner or later the sin will be freely accepted. Individ- 
ually, the act is free ; yet upon the collective rests the 
pressure of a sure necessity. So it is found in the doc- 
trine of probabilities. Of a given cycle of The neqessity 
throws of dice, each throw may or may not collective - 
turn up a six ; and yet such is the synthesis of causations 
in the great Cosmos, that within the cycle a six must 
turn up. These cycles of individually free volitions, con- 
tinually occurring, and sometimes several simultaneously, 
* See p. 132. 



340 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

become so innumerable that sooner or later the free re- 
sponsible sin will be committed, and so a responsible 
depravity becomes individually and freely universal by 
necessity. What bearings this necessity, in spite of this 
freedom, may have upon our responsibility, may appear 
in the sequel. m 

With regard to the effect of this collective necessity, in 
collective hearty accordance with our maxim, we mah> 
^tro^re? 6 " tain that, according to its quality and quantity, 
sponsibihty. .^ ^ g destructive of responsibility. The philoso- 
pher who, like Kant, shall in effect say, I ought to do 
right with ideal perfectness through my whole life, there- 
fore I can, lays no just basis of a responsibility. It 
might be replied with Baader, " The consciousness that 
I ought to act so or so compels me to acknowledge that 
I could so act if I would ; but no less clear is the con- 
viction that I do not will so to act, that I will to act 
otherwise. Now this perverse Will I am to repress 
by keeping it down with opposing Will, which is 
just as easy as — keeping in my breath or committing 
suicide." 

We might still more strongly add by our view that 
the "I can" in its requisite extension is utterly de- 
stroyed by our collective necessity, and the basis of a just 
responsibility goes with it. And this remark of Baader's 
illustrates the utterly fantastic nature of that theory 
which bases responsibility upon a "moral ability" in the 
Will to enact a volition otherwise than the strongest mo- 
tive, which it expressly admits no Will, finite or infinite, 
so also " mor- aciua ^ or possible, ever puts forth. Such a 
ai ability." volition is infinitely more a phantasm than 
either the held breath or suicide. It is more like the 
act of drawing a pure geometrical figure with a charcoal. 
But even this ideal diagram is practicable and normal to 
a superior nature ; whereas the ideal volition is unknown 
to any nature. 

The blessed antithesis and compensation to this col- 



Sect. 3.] APPROPRIATION* OF RESPONSIBILITY, 341 

lective necessity to freely contract the guilt of Remedy of 
original sin, is the free and perpetual availability five necessi- 
of the Atonement. The aggregate necessity is ty * 
hereby balanced by an aggregate freedom. The bane is 
primitively not removed, but the antidote is supplied. 
Free, individually, in sinning and self-depravation, we are 
free, individually, in accepting justification and regenera- 
tion. It is thus that, without losing its intrinsic charac- 
ter of stupendous grace, the atonement becomes a justice 
— a theodice. It blends in with the terrible elements of 
our fallen state, and forms an average proba- Equitable dis . 
tional dispensation in which the divine Ad- P ensation - 
ministrator appears not merely absolutely just, but practi- 
cally equitable, and mercifully reasonable to our human 
reason. 

The trial of our probation thereupon becomes — not the 
avoiding distributively with an ideal moral power every 
individual sin ; that is, in keeping the law with an unfall- 
en perfection ; but — the alternative of our preferring the 
blessed means of escaping the power of sin and attaining 
an ultimate perfection, or a rejection of the offered re- 
medial aid and persistence in our sin and ever Noprobation 
deepening depravation. And thus we see that demption. 
without the Redeemer no equitable system of probation 
for fallen man is a possibility. The Cross is the key to 
the mystery of our being. 

But it is affirmed by Muller that, in the progress of our 
daily moral history, so does a man find necessary impulses 
and free volitions mingling together in the mass 0ur min&led 
of his sin, that no distinction can be practically mass of sm - 
drawn ; and conscience does in fact pronounce guilty of 
the whole. In the practical act of repentance, we reply, 
it is not very necessary for a man to sort out his sins 
into impulse and volition, responsible and irresponsible. 
They are all his enemies; dangerous to his gortin of 
peace and safety ; and he does well to get rid gJ^j^JS: 
of them, without waiting for a ceremonious i> entaQCe - 



342 KECESSITAKIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

analysis by the most summary process possible. He can 
afford to abjure them in the gross, and let God do the 
discriminating. Nevertheless, it is not true that con- 
science cognizes no difference ; nor is it proved true by 
the fact that it is difficult, nay, often impossible, to pro- 
nounce infallibly of the guilt of many a single act. 
The reality of moral distinctions does not depend upon 
our skill in applying the principles to the actual case. 
My conscience does not recognize a guilt for a primordial 
Yet there is necessitation ; and it does recognize guilt for 
thefr iStuS a self-superinduced necessitation. It does not 

andrespons- . •■•'*• -i • ■» 

unities. recognize guilt ior a purely necessitated voli- 
tion ; and it does recognize guilt for a free alternative 
volition. Questions of the amount or nature of blame 
are every day occurring, in jurisprudence, in ethics, in our 
judgments of character, in which these discriminations are 
spontaneously made. And when we look upon the body 
of sin within us, we find its varying nature requires a 
varying remedy. For our freely contracted guilt, there 
must be justification/ for our freely contracted tenden- 
cies to sin, and to different classes of sins, there must be 
sanctification ; and for that primitive and necessitative in- 
And difference graining of depravity in our nature by which 

remedies. occasions and impulses and necessitations to 
sin exist, resulting in actual free responsible sins, we 
need the reorganization, the death and resurrection, the 
bodily reconstruction in the image of Christ. 

Thus we see how by a free act, none the less individ- 
ually free because universally committed, the guilt of 
our depravity is contracted. We see how that single 
free appropriative act, though a crisis, is not so moment- 
ous a transition as at first sight appears, and 
requires no shock to make it memorable. We 
see how the collective necessity of a universal deprava- 
tion is balanced by the free availability of a universal 
atonement. God is hereby (and in no way without the 
atonement) justified in the equity of our probation. 



Sect. 8.J PKOBATIONAL ADVANTAGES. 343 

The total inability of fallen man, apart from all provis- 
ion, to keep the Law, arises from the fact that its holi- 
ness, as a normal course of conduct, is outside the condi- 
tions we have stated* of possible volitional action. The 
knowledge of the perfect way, in its rectitude and per- 
petuity, is as unrevealed to his moral perception as the 
view of a pure geometrical figure to the human eye. 
The feeling of love to God he is as unable to beget in his 
own soul as is a sensualist to create in his heart a poetic 
sensibility. Even with a Saviour, a Bible, a Church, and 
a blessed Spirit, the natural man, without an individual 
self-surrender to divine aid, cannot attain a final restora- 
tion to the divine image. Without these provisions, both 
gracious and just in their character, the elements of a 
righteous probational system have no existence. With- 
out Christ the foundations of our present moral system 
could not be laid. 



CHAPTEE XI. 

EQUATION OF PROBATIONAL ADVANTAGES. 

Of the three great generic difficulties of Arniinianism, 
enumerated by Dr. Hill in his theology, the first is 
drawn from the fact that a large share of mankind never 
having heard of Christ are, even by Arminian conces- 
sion, excluded from the means, and so from the possible 
attainment, of salvation through him. After all your 
efforts to maintain the freedom of the human Will, (such 
is in effect his argument,) and your rejection of the just- 
ice of condemnation without a previous power Histor i ca i 
to attain salvation, men are, by a sort of histor- re P robatlon - 
ical reprobation, damned without ever having possessed 
the power of being saved. Anticalvinian writers early 
* See p. 70. 



344 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

appreciated this difficulty and furnished their answers. 
Perhaps the ablest and fullest discussion on the Arminian 
side is the treatise of Curcellaeus, De Necessitate Cogni- 
tionis Christi ad Salutem, written in reply to Maresius, 
who took the high Calvinian ground of the universal 
damnation of all not possessing actual faith in Christ. 

Other than Arminian theologians have advocated 
various soiu- explanatory theories. One class has adopted 
tions. t he theory of restorationism, by which penalty 

is graduated to the guilt by the length as well as the 
degree of infliction. Others, as Miiller in his Doctrine 
of Sin, conceiving that our Protestant eschatology is too 
stern, have preferred a theory, not of purgatory precisely, 
but of a means of knowledge and repentance in the inter- 
mediate state for those who are excluded therefrom during 
life. A third class embraces the doctrine of annihilation- 
ism, according to which, all who fail to fulfill the condi- 
tions of a real probation simply relapse into the non- 
existence from which they were brought by human birth. 
Could either one of these theories be proved it would 
obviate the Calvinian argument. It is our present pur- 
pose neither to refute their claims nor to adopt their 
method of solution. 

We may in the first place remark that Dr. Hill's argu- 
Dangerous ment is a most dangerous weapon for Calvin- 
argument. j gm ^ smce it involves a complete admission of 
the accuracy and justice of one of the strongest objec- 
tions against that system. His argument clearly avows 
a reprobation in which there has never been in the sub- 
ject any power to attain salvation. After all the Cal- 
vinian talk of the freedom of the human Will, damnation 
is confessedly accorded without the slightest freedom in 
the Will to escape it. For if men are historically repro- 
bated by absolute exclusion from all knowledge of Christ, 
how is salvation ever in reach of their free-will ? 

Arminianism is not required to affirm an absolute and 
precise equality of privileges and means of salvation to 



Sect. 3.] PKOBATIOETAL ADVANTAGES. 345 

all the race. What she does affirm is, that justice is 
done in every individual case. We may perhaps express 
the true ground in Jhe following brief statement : 

Although there is not a perfect equation of the means 
and advantages among all mankind, yet it may Arminian 
be affirmed that no man is ever condemned to statement - 
everlasting death who has not enjoyed full means and 
opportunity for salvation, and has willfully rejected 
them by persevering in a course of conscious sin. The 
inequalities of advantage for salvation are in a great 
degree obviated by the fact that the amount of advant- 
age is an important element in the graduation of pen- 
alty and reward. Such may be the proportion of moral 
demand for higher excellence, and such the liability to 
deeper penalty for misimprovement, that classes of man- 
kind favored with higher means are perhaps on a wise 
calculation at a level with the apparently less privileged. 
Or conversely, the parts of mankind possessed of inferior 
means may be so compensated by proportionate allow- 
ances that they may be on an actual level of advantage 
with their apparently more favored fellows. 

Without the limits of the proper Christian dispensa- 
tion but two others require consideration, namely, first, 
what we will call the Infantile, Irresponsible, or Unde- 
veloped Dispensation, embracing all minds not devel- 
oped to the conditions of a moral accountability; and 
second, the Heathen Dispensation, embracing all ex- 
cluded from all possible knowledge of Christianity. 

I. A large mass, if not a majority of mankind, are said 
hitherto to have died in infancy, including under that 
description all who do not attain a responsible age. This 
dispensation then is, perhaps, scarce less pop- i nfant i rre - 
ulous than all the others inclusive. This is a s *> onsibilit y- 
most mysterious point in the divine administration, of 
which it is no part of our present purpose to attempt an 
explanation, that in a world of probation so large a pro- 
portion should be abortive as subjects of probation. 



346 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

Nevertheless up to a responsible age the manifestations 
of sinful nature, the sinful thoughts and actions, subject 
not the being to penal retribution. . 

But, irrespective of age, is there not a large class of 
mankind whose moral and intellectual nature has never 
attained a development to the level of responsibility? 
The reflections of thinkers on this subject have, it may 
be, rested too much on the point of mere age. If there 
are millions who die before arriving at the normal respons- 
ible age, there are other millions who never at any age 
arrive at a more responsible mental development than 
the infant. Under this head we should not perhaps 
include idiots alone. But is there not within the bounds 
and perhaps in the center of Christendom itself a count 
less class, accurately gauged by the eye of Omniscience 
Adults as ir- a l° ne > whose minds are as little expanded, and 
responsible. as \\tt\e qualified, intellectually or morally, for 
the responsibilities of probation, if not as the idiot, cer- 
tainly as the child ? As our minds are liable to be influ- 
enced by individual chronology in the matter of respons- 
ible development, so we are apt to limit the heathen 
dispensation by geographical limits alone. But within 
the bosom of Christendom there is an immense class 
adult in years but apparently entitled to the moral 
immunity of infancy ; geographically Christian, but with 
as little access to a true Christianity as the most distant 
heathenism — Heathendom in Christendom. Excluded 
perhaps by invincible barriers from any possible knowl- 
edge of the truth as a very idiot, unwarned and uncon- 
scious that there is any truth to be sought, they seem 
incapable of being held to a just penal responsibility. 
In the dregs of our large cities, it is impossible to say 
what numbers there are whom we hardly can decide 
whether they are to be assigned to the infant and idiot 
dispensation or to Heathendom. To decide this in most 
living individual cases would require an Omniscient 
knowledge of their interior man and entire spiritual 



Sect. 3.] PROBATIONAL ADVANTAGES. 347 

history. Each single living problem must stand unsolved. 
Each man is, in a degree, by himself a dispensation. 
But what is the ultimate destiny ? Precisely the same, 
we reply, with that of the infant. The creeds which 
teach infant damnation should make a clean sweep 
of the whole ; while in our view they are all on the same 
basis of common redemption. The infant is in the 
kingdom of God with a character perhaps correspondent 
to regeneration in the adult. The irresponsible adult, 
however incrusted in irresponsible sins, is redeemed by 
an unknown Saviour. Both alike may be least in the 
kingdom of heaven ; neither can, by the law of moral 
equation, be excluded from it. 

II. But geographically distant from Christian lands, 
in a real Heatheistdom, there are those who never heard 
of Christ, in regard to whom the question arises, What are 
their advantages for attaining eternal life ? To attempt 
deciding this peremptorily in the individual instances 
as they occur in experience would be assuming the pre- 
rogative of Omniscience. But the general principles 
of a just responsibility may perhaps be proximately 
ascertained. 

We assume the headship of Christ over the human 
race, placing on the basis of his atonement all Universal 
mankind under a regimen of just and merciful advanta & es - 
probation, suited to the present nature and state of our 
humanity, cognizing all the shades of human life, circum- 
stances, and character, and adjusting with absolute accu- 
racy the retribution of reward or penalty to the case. 
We assume the universality of the atonement, and that 
millions may be saved by its means who never heard the 
name of the Propitiator. We assume the universality 
of the dispensation of the Spirit. We assume the uni- 
versal possession of the faculties of reason inferring a 
Creator from the creation, a conscience furnishing the 
dictates of right and wrong. The reason may not reveal 
a Creator in the fullness of his attributes, nor even pre- 



348 NECESSITARIAN" ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

vent the worship of a God through finite symbols and 
images, which the Scriptures, given for the very purpose 
of maintaining the pure idea of the Deity, prohibit as 
idolatry, under severest penalty, especially to the chosen 
race, whose special mission was, the preservation of the 
pure idea for the development of future ages. The con- 
science may not furnish an absolutely accurate code of 
ethics ; but it furnishes principles which are relatively to 
the individual right, and safe in the eye of God for him 
to follow. If under the guidance of that reason he fol- 
lows the dictates of that conscience, the man, though 
absolutely wrong on many points, will under our gracious 
dispensation be rights so far as responsibility and future 
destiny are concerned. Such a man will act under many 
a sad delusion and commit many things intrinsically 
wrong ; but the saving fact is that he acts with a purpose 
which wants but the light of truth in order to his being 
truly right. In such a case, though there is 
then s °s f aiva- not tne rea lfty °f Christian faith and righteous- 
ti0XL ness, yet there are two things, namely, 1 . What 

we will call the spirit of faith ; and, 2. The purpose 
of righteousness. Where these two exist in the man, 
under any dispensation, he is justified through the atone- 
ment and accepted of God. 

The doctrine of the grades of future retribution ad- 
justed to the varieties of probationary character is abund- 
antly taught in Scripture. Scripture rule is, that we 
are rewarded according to our works. Of the blessed, 
we are taught that in the resurrection one star differeth 
from another in glory, (1 Gor. xv, 41 ;) that there is a 
greatest and a least in the kingdom of heaven, (Matt, 
v, 19;) that some attain an abundant entrance, (2 Pet. 
i, 11 ;) and some are scarce saved, (1 Pet. iv, 18.) Of 
the condemned we are told that he that knew his Mas- 
ter's will and did it not shall be beaten with many 
stripes ; while he that knew not his Master's will, and 
through neglecting the law of conscience showed not the 



Sect. 3.] PROBATTONAL ADVANTAGES. 349 

works of the law, shall be beaten with many GradeS0 fret- 
stripes, (Luke xii, 47.) And once for all the ribution - 
rule is laid down, "Unto whomsoever much is given 
shall be much required," (Luke xii, 48.) And this rule 
is illustrated by the fact that in the parable of the talents 
(Matt, xxv, 14-30) the rewards were adjusted to the 
amount of improvement, and the amount of improvement 
proportioned to the capital furnished was completely ac- 
cepted, while the reward was proportioned to both. 

Our Saviour (Matt, xi, 20-24) declares that it would 
be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day 
of judgment than for the cities who had witnessed his 
preaching and mighty works; since Sodom with such 
advantages would, like Nineveh, have " repented in sack- 
cloth and ashes." From this we may infer, 1. That all 
people have not equal advantages for salvation ; 2. That 
those who receive the highest advantages may neverthe- 
less reject salvation; 3. That God may discern in the 
minds of those who possess inferior advantages that 
spirit or will of faith by which in the day of their visit- 
ation they would have accepted had Christ in fullness 
been presented; 4. That such a disposition to faith di- 
minishes their guilt and subtracts from their penalty; 
5. That the degree of advantage, when rejected, height- 
ens the guilt and adds a proportional segment to the 
amount of penalty ; 6. That Sodom was not the worst 
city conceivable, since they had at least in some part of 
their history the spirit of faith ; but not possessing the 
concrete object of faith, their faith was culpably defect- 
ive, not being verified by the purpose of righteousness. 
On the contrary, in the absence of a concrete and cogniz- 
able Redeemer and Judge they renounced not only all 
efficient faith, but all righteousness, and gave themselves 
over to all uncleanness. 

1. Of the spirit of faith it may be said that though 
it is not a perfect faith in Christ, yet it is a , gpirit of 
faith more or less distinct, recognized by the FaittL 



350 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

searcher of hearts and trier of the reins, in that of which, 
Christ is the concrete and the embodiment. It may be 
safely assumed that if the true Redeemer were presented 
in proper correlation to that faith at the moment of its 
full existence he would be cordially accepted. Hence 
Christ is presented to the world as a test to the true ring 
of the moral purpose. He " is set for the fall and rising 
again of many, that the thoughts of many hearts may be 
revealed." Luke ii, 34, 35. " For judgment came he into 
the world, that they which see not might see; and that 
they which see, corruptly and falsely, might be made 
blind." John ix, 39. The splendid catalogue of saints 
enumerated in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews had at 
best but a dim conception of the redemptive concrete 
object of faith ; some of them, perhaps, no conception at 
all. Their faith was the aspiring, heroic faith of the 
heart and will, whose object was truly realized and em- 
bodied in Christ. To such a faith had Christ been cor- 
relatively revealed, with the earnestness of a Nathaniel 
its exclamation would have been, Rabbi, thou art the 
son of God, thou art the King of Israel. And similarly 
we may suppose that a Socrates, who, according to Plato, 
earnestly thirsted for a divine teacher, could have rejoiced 
at the revealed advent to himself of this Messiah. But 
we do not imagine that such cases are to be found solely 
in those strikingly historic characters. Wherever the 
Gospel is not preached, as well as wherever it is preached, 
there are those who are not necessitatedly, but by their 
own free act and state, predisposed or ordained to eternal 
life, and such believe. (Acts xiv, 48.) Of such a class God 
might often say to the discouraged missionary, Be not 
afraid, for I have much people in this city. 

2. This spirit of faith, however, like the actual faith 

2 works of °f tne ^ 0S P e ^ must be vivified by works; 
righteousness. that ig? it mugt k e substantiated by the pur- 
pose and actuality of righteousness, exemplified by an 
adherence to the laws of conscience. In spirit and pur- 



Sect. 3.] PKOBATIONAL ADVANTAGES. 351 

pose this is to fear God and work righteousness; and 
in every nation such as fulfill these conditions are ac- 
cepted of him. (Acts x, 35.) About this is meant by the 
phrase, " living up to the light a man has." 

It is often said, however, that we have no reason to 
suppose that there are any in heathen countries who 
live up to the light they have. 

And in strict interpretation, such a statement is true 
of all men in all countries. By that strictness of interpret- 
ation, all Christendom, as well as all Heathendom, must, 
without exception, perish. The application of the same 
liberality of interpretation which would save the visible 
Church in Christendom, would save the invisible Church 
in Heathendom. The true principle doubtless is, that 
the heathen will be saved who attains that Proportionate 
approximation to the perfect standard of his standard. 
dispensation which equals the saving approximation in 
the Christian dispensation. He is a saved heathen who 
lives as nearly up to the light he has, as does the Chris- 
tian who is finally saved to the light he has. 

Truly, that severity of Christian judgment, with which 
many judge the unfavored peoples, would leave us little 
hope of the Christian Church. That judgment is a sharp 
two-edged sword. It surveys the vices and crimes of 
heathen nations and communities and individuals, judges 
them by the moral standard of the written law, and exe- 
cutes summary justice without redemption. It forgets 
the crimes and vices of Christendom, refined indeed by 
civilization from some barbarian grossness, but rendered 
ingenious and varied by the subtle genius of an invent- 
ive age. More especially, it forgets how the Christian 
Church ranks not only immensely below the true ideal 
of a Church, but how often she is the apologist, the sanc- 
tioned and the perpetrator of stupendous sins. What 
persecutions, what corruptions, what idolatries, what 
oppressions, has not the Christian Church not only sanc- 
tioned, but committed. And yet that Church is the 



S52 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

hope, the light, the conscience, and the depository of 
truth for the world. 

For instance, we see in a certain age and section a 
Church below vast b°dy of the Christian Church engaged in 
its standard. the pract i ce and defense of slaveholding ; we 
wonder to find that in other respects they exhibit the 
fruits of the Spirit in rich abundance, and we ask if such 
men are to be peremptorily unchristianized here, and 
utterly damned hereafter. Certainly not. It belongs 
indeed to the general Christian Church, as testimony 
against their great sin, to place them under the ban of 
exclusion from Christian fellowship, and leave them to 
God's wise judgment. So long as their light in other 
respects is not darkness, so long as their religion is in its 
place immensely better than none at all, we admit their 
true Christianity, burdened indeed by a sin that dwarfs 
its stature, and trims it of half its reward in glory. 

Surely he must read the ecclesiastical and religious 
invisible Church history of Christendom with a sad heart, if 
of Heathendom. not an m fidel discouragement, who cannot 
understand how God, under the superincumbent burden 
and guise of error and wrong, can recognize the body of 
believers in spirit, and righteous ones in purpose, who 
form the true invisible Church in the visible world. And 
the same penetrative eye that can recognize the Church 
in Christendom, who dimly embrace the historic Messiah 
in the fullness of his ill-understood offices, ought also to 
recognize the Church in Heathendom, who sit indeed in 
the valley of the shadow of death, but whose spirit of 
faith would embrace that Saviour in the completeness of 
his revelation and advent. And thus it truly is, that the 
missionary who goes forth into heathen lands goes, in a 
Missionary a g reat degree, on a tour of discovery. He goes 
discoverer. t0 j* n( % foe men who, tried by the test of a pre- 
sented Saviour, shall be found freely willing to exercise 
the spirit of faith and righteousness. As the philosopher, 
applying the magnet to a heap of sand and iron filings, 



beet. 3.] PROBATIONAL ADVANTAGES. 353 

finds that the metallic particles will adhere to the load- 
stone, while the sands lie quiet in their own inertness, so 
the missionary, rightly presenting the cross, shall find it 
to operate as a test to decide whose wills and purposes 
may render and prove them the true metal. He may 
not present the test rightly. It may not be brought into 
true correlation with the soul of the heathen. Hence he 
may not find all the genuine objects of his search. But 
if the true correlation be brought about, it will generally 
prove true that much people will be found unconsciously 
waiting the desire of all nations. Such a spirit of faith, 
like the faith of the Christian, may be for a while enter- 
tained and then renounced. Like the receptive faith of 
Sodom, which would have received the living personal 
Christ, if presented in the plenitude of his miracles and 
preaching, it may be overborne and renounced, and the 
original possessors may plunge, voluntarily and guiltily, 
into all the excess of lasciviousness. Like the Jews, it 
may rejoice in some harbinger of the Messiah for a season. 
On the other hand, the presentation of the Gospel may 
not only discover, but awaken the spirit of Algo an 
faith and energize a spirit of righteousness. As awakener - 
we have before remarked, though every man who is ul- 
timately condemned has had his day of visitation, his 
chance to exercise the spirit of faith and of righteous- 
ness, and is therefore justly condemned; yet there are 
higher as well as lower states of advantage, and the 
higher state may, and doubtless often will, result in in- 
creased numbers of believers ultimately saved. Indeed, 
we are expressly told by our Saviour, that revelations 
might have been made to Sodom, in view of which Sodom 
would have repented. It would even appear that had 
the apostles, or missionaries equal to them in power, have 
gone to Sodom, Sodom would have been penitent. The 
right missionary, then, in the right place, may be the 
means of an indefinite increase of believers who shall be 
6aved. The Church, thus in the right temper and posi- 

23 



354 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

tion, may still effectuate through the blessing of God the 
conversion of the world, and the universal conversion of 
the world, terminating all geographical inequalities, result 
in the salvation of the entire mass. 

But terrible enough, under any view, is not only the 
condition, but the guilt and the responsibility of Hea- 
Heathenismas thendom. Heathendom is not merely a cause, 
a free result. j^ an e ff ec i . an( j ^o a large degree, in every 
generation, a willful and unnecessary and consequently 
responsible effect of men's conscious and intentional sins. 
If individuals sin greatly and almost necessarily because 
the aggregate sins, the aggregate is sinful because the 
individual sins freely, responsibly, and beyond the equi- 
table and indulgent excuse from his condition. And that 
makes heathenism; and makes heathenism largely re- 
sponsible and damnable. But for this, the true light 
would shine and heathenism would long since have been 
Christendom. And to this extent the heathen are under 
just sentence of eternal death. 

And this accords with St. Paul's view in the first and 
st. Paul's view second chapters of Romans. Those who have 

of heathen- _ . - . - _ , , 

dom. not the written law are not judged by the 

written law. They have a conscience, a law written on 
the heart, under the dispensation of which they are 
judged, as the Jews are judged under the written law. 
And (chap, i, 17-32) it was upon men in heathendom, 
who obstruct (so the word hold should be rendered) the 
truth by unrighteousness, that the wrath of God is re- 
vealed. For whereas they had, from nature and con- 
science, a dispensation up to which they might live and 
so attain the truth, they turned the truth into a lie, and 
so were given up " to vile affections" Their responsi- 
bility arose from the fact that they " did not like to re- 
tain the knowledge of God," and that though knowing 
that they which do such things are worthy of death, not 
only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do 
them. Nor is it true that, beyond the recognition of the 



Sect. 3.] PKOBATIONAL ADVANTAGES. 355 

facts that men out from under the written law are still 
under an ethical law, with a conscience to render it con- 
scious, and a perception of a deity as its administrator, 
the apostle does not in these chapters furnish any cheer- 
ing moral points in heathen character or destiny. For 
in chapter ii, verse 14, he clearly supposes that there are 
Gentiles that "do by nature the things contained' in the 
law;" and in verse 15, that "they show the work of the 
law written in their hearts," and he accounts for the fact 
by averring that they are under the law and guidance of 
conscience. 

It perfectly accords with our views of a responsible 
free-agency to suppose that there are localities on earth 
in which, through periods of time, there is so total a 
moral depravation, that the spirit of faith is Unsaved hea . 
completely repudiated, and the entire reverse thenmasses - 
of works of righteousness is done. Besides the large 
number who, happily for themselves, are in the condi- 
tions of irresponsibility, every individual of the whole 
mass in such case is freely, responsibly, damnably guilty. 
But we must not argue too sweepingly from cases of 
such extremity. There may be, too, spots in Christen- 
dom even where a degree of morality prevails, 
where a professed Church exists, and a form 
of religion is enacted, where not a responsible soul is in 
a state of salvation. 

Nor, we may add, must we confound temporal moral 
aspects with eternal prospects. For we may safely con- 
jecture that a negro hamlet in Central Africa, however 
inferior in its temporal moral aspects, especially when 
contemplated in the light of our moral and intellectual 
biases, may, in its prospects for an eternal destiny r , be 
superior to many an American village. That crowd of 
semi-barbarians, giddy with folly, addicted to vices, mis- 
guided by degrading superstitions, is composed of in- 
trinsically noble human spirits, towering immeasurably 
above the most human-like animal species around them, 



356 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

endowed with educable reason, with illuminable con- 
science, and with spiritual susceptibilities, capable of be- 
ing developed (as the modern religious history of Mada- 
gascar nobly shows) into a most heroic and martyr-like 
Christianity. Certainly, in a community like this, the 
Omniscient eye that could discern a predisposition to re- 
African and pentance in Sodom itself may recognize an 
village. abundance of the spirit of faith, and, tried too 
by the ethics of its dispensation, that community may 
follow its own conscience, and " live up to the light it 
has" more truly than many a New England village. 
And making the due allowance, as taught by the words 
of Christ, for its inferior advantages, its collective pros- 
pect for eternity may be far superior. For that New 
England village has placed before its mental view the 
pure New Testament ideal, and the solemn obligations 
of Christianity ; and yet the large majority of numbers, 
wealth, and influence is impenitent, perhaps skeptical. 
And its Church, how poorly does it present that pure 
reality of Christianity which could win the world by its 
loveliness, purity, and power. Nay, how little heart for 
the work of shaping the world to the model of Christ, 
and winning it as a trophy to his cross. 

Strictly of a piece with this want of heart is the want 
of a pure and flaming zeal in the prosecution of the mis- 
Missionary sionanf enterprise. And we develop this topic 

test of saved - 

state. all the more fully because it at once establishes 

our argument, and shows that our favorable view of the 
heathen condition is a strong incentive rather than a 
damper to the missionary spirit. It is the want of that 
spirit, identical with the missionary spirit, which ruins 
the souls of that New England village. That same dis- 
position by which that village would become purely 
Christian, heir of eternal life, is the spirit by which 
it would seek with all its heart and all its strength to 
win a world to Christ. And the specific spirit, too, 
of missionary enterprise, burning with intense power 



Sect. 3.] PROBATIOJSTAL ADVANTAGES. 357 

in the heart of that Church, would react to kindle the 
love and zeal requisite to gain its own community for 
heaven. By seeking to save others, that village would 
save itself. 

Bold assertions in missionary speeches and sermons, 
that all the world without the pale of Christendom is 
damned in mass, never quicken the pulse of chiiimg 

. . , ^ ,, . ,, missionary 

missionary zeal. On the contrary, they ever speeches. 
roll a cold reaction upon every feeling heart and every 
rational mind. Our better natures revolt, and, alas! a 
gush of skepticism is but too apt in consequence to rise 
in the public mind, especially where precise ideas in re- 
gard to the question have not been formed and fixed. 
We had far better argue the missionary cause from the 
danger to our own salvation from that low standard of 
Christianity which does not subdue the world to the 
righteousness of faith from the vast increase of the num- 
ber saved through a universal Gospel, and from the rich 
reward and unspeakable glory of winning every isle and 
continent to Christ, securing him the crown of our entire 
planet. 

Heathendom has her standing plea in condemnation of 
Christendom. She avers that Christendom, having the 
blessing and glory of religion, does most guiltily not only 
misimprove the boon, but repudiate her obligation to 
impart it. She charges that Christendom, with all her 
advantages, is still but too heathen, forgetting her mis- 
sion of blessing the families of the earth with The monopoIy 
the gift of the Gospel, while she riots in re- f 8 f th ch?ist?n! 
fined licentiousness, expends her treasures in dom s sm ' 
splendid self-gratifications, and employs her powers, 
trained by the civilizing discipline of Christianity, in wars 
of ambition and national aggrandizements. Heathendom 
thus maintains that, before heaven and earth, her case is 
fairer, if not in its present superficial moral aspects, 
yet in the light of reason and the judgment of eter- 
nity. Nor are we sure — and the possibility is a motive 



358 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT CONSIDERED. [Part II, 

for higher zeal in diffusing the knowledge of the Gospel 
of Christ — that thus far in the history of the Christian 
ages, so have we misimproved our higher means, and so 
far forgotten to impart and diffuse the Gospel we mo- 
nopolize, that the majority of the redeemed will not have 
been gathered by Christ from lands where the power 
of his cross has never yet been proclaimed. 

A greater power of missionary enterprise would, in full 
accordance with our views, increase, beyond all known 
volume, the amount of the spirit of faith in the hamlets and 
territories of Heathendom. The " mighty works " of the 
Gospel may be so presented to the Sodoms and Gomor- 
rahs, to the Tyres and Sidons of the heathen dispensa- 
tion in the present age, as that they "will repent in 
sackcloth and ashes." And as the demoralization of one 
part of mankind sheds a demoralizing influence over all 
the rest of mankind, so the purification of one part may 
react in blessing upon all others, 

u Till, like a sea of glory, 
It spreads from pole to pole." 

When every part is purified a nobler spirit of rectitude 
is universally diffused, a loftier standard of 

Universal J 7 

hilhtrsttSd- Christian civilization arises, a more perfect 
"^ model of Christian holiness is attained, and 

the Church, embracing the world, gradually rises to 
the realization of the ideal of a true, a holy, and a glori- 
ous Church. Thus our favorable view of the condition 
of heathenism furnishes enhanced reasons and motives 
for the most earnest exertions by the Church for the 
world's conversion. 

And yet the eternal crown of these giants of holiness 
under high advantages may, by the law of equalization, 
be no brighter than shall be worn by their predecessors, 
who attained a lower stature, more hardly won, amid 
the struggles of a depraved age. So may the saints 
of all ages be graded to a proportionate level. The 



Sect. 3.] PROBATIONAL ADVANTAGES. 359 

great advantages of that millennial age, worth centuries 
of martyrdom, warfare, and missionary toil, is that, 
generally speaking, all are saved, all through Equationof 
perhaps countless generations of the race ; so rewards - 
that it may not be an unreasonable supposition that, 
ultimately, it is not the few but the many that shall be 
redeemed. And we are inclined to indorse the opinion 
that the finally lost will be, proportionally, as few as 
are the criminals executed upon the gallows at the 
present day in comparison with the rest of the commu- 
nity. They will be the malefactors of the world, perhaps 
of the universe. 

Our whole view evolves the conclusion that the possession 
of the Gospel is not only a glorious and blessed, but a 
most solemn and responsible boon. The savor of life unto 
life may be a savor of death unto death. The Gospel 
within reach, the Gospel heard, the Gospel possessed, 
all involve an accountability, whose shade of guilt God 
alone can precisely measure. The Gospel within reach 
carries a power of warning of its claim to attendance 
and attention. The Gospel heard involves a right to 
faith and obedience. The Gospel possessed proclaims 
the obligation to practice and diffuse its doctrines and 
power throttgh the earth. Higher advantages render 
higher holiness obligatory. The greatest sinner in the 
world, measured not by superficial aspects, but by com- 
pound responsibilities of sin committed and advantages 
enjoyed, may very probably be the Gospel-hearing sin- 
ner, who knows his duty and does it not. His woe is 
that of Chorazin and Bethsaida, in comparison with 
which the doom of Sodom was light. 

Our conclusion then is, that if Arminianism explains 
itself aright, it leaves to Calvinism alone its inexorable, 
historical, and geographical reprobation, a counterpart 
to its theological. We survey Heathendom with melt- 
ing pity indeed, but without that horror and mystery 
which the dark, damnatory view of reprobation affords, 



360 NECESSITARIAN ARGUMENT* CONSIDERED. [Paxtll. 
mL t We contemplate the whole without any shud- 

The humane x ^ 

SoTary 111 ^". tiering misgivings of divine injustice. And 
centive. j e ^ m ^ e verv humaneness of our view, we 
gather fresh motives, more searching and home-coming 
impressions of responsibility, and more cheering incite- 
ments to quicken the nerve of missionary enterprise, 
through all the sections of the Christian Church and for 
all the lands of the habitable globe. 



Our review of the Necessitarian argument is now 
closed. Our position throughout has been 
that the Power of counter choice — being the 
indispensable condition to Responsibility — must be held 
to exist until an unanswerable argument has proved its 
non-existence. Our reader who at this point coincides 
with us in thinking that none such has been found, may 
consider our whole work now accomplished. The diffi- 
culties in the way of Responsibility are cleared by the 
completed defense of the reality of Freedom. Neverthe- 
less, not only are some positive arguments worthy of 
statement, but there are some necessitarian replies to 
that argument requiring answers which can best be 
made after the positive statement has been presented. 



Chap.l.] ARGUMENT FROM CONSCIOUSNESS. 361 



PAET THIRD. 
THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE ARGUMENT FROM CONSCIOUSNESS. 

So varying are the views of psychologists in regard to 
the nature of consciousness, or rather in regard to the 
meaning of the term, that we find it convenient to adopt 
a nomenclature of our own, and speak of Consciousness, 
Self-consciotjsness, and Sub-consciousness. 

I. Consciousness. At the threshold of this argument 
we are told that consciousness is a faculty which can take 
cognizance of mental operations alone, and knows noth- 
ing directly of powers, which knowledge the mind derives 
by logical inference from operations ; hence she can say 
nothing of an alternative power of Will. "For con- 
sciousness," says the Princeton Essayist, "is the mind's 
cognizance of its own operations; it never beholds 
naked, abstract faculties separate from their workings. 
It discerns them in and by these workings, and so 
becomes conscious of their existence and nature. This, 
and nothing else, is the office of consciousness. How, 
then, can it be cognizant of operations which do not 
exist ?" 

It is not claimed, we reply, that the consciousness is 
" cognizant of operations which do not exist," Consciousnesa 
but of power for such non-existent operations. of power - 
And if, as the writer admits, the mind becomes conscious, 
even indirectly, of the existence and nature of powers, 



362 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

and so is truly said to be conscious of a power at all, the 
mind assuredly is conscious of power for operations, 
namely, volitions which do not exist. For before every 
volition which it is about to make, and when it is as yet 
an " operation which does not exist," the mind is con- 
scious of a power to operate it. Our volitions are all 
put forth in the light of a conscious anterior power 
to put them forth. Otherwise they would not be put 
For non-exist- f° rtn - And a conscious power for the act 
ent operation. b e f ore ^he act is a conscious power for an 
action which does not exist. 

Nor can it be truly said, as sometimes is said, that we 
can have no conscious sense of power for a volition left 
ultimately unperformed. That is, it cannot be shown 
that we have no conscious sense of power for volitions 
alternatively omitted. On the contrary, we naturally 
survey the alternatives of choice before us with a con- 
And for voii- scious sense that either is in our power, that 

tions never - «•*»•>* 

existing. we have a one power for either act. Our 
conscious sense is that previous to our determination 
the choices omitted were as truly in our power as the 
choice performed. Before that performance our con- 
scious sense is that each and every choice is equally in 
our power, and that the choices omitted are omitted not 
for not possessing the power, but for not exerting it. 
So far, then, as consciousness decides, we possess amid 
choices an alternative power. 

Let us suppose, then, several alternatives before 
the deliberating mind. The conscious feeling is that 
The case con- e i tner object is in the power of the choice. 

tempiated. j^ com p ar i son f their relative qualities shows 
different recommendations in each object, appealing 
to different faculties of the mind. One quality appeals 
to the reason, a second to the moral sense, a third 
to the love of beauty, a fourth to the personal inter- 
est, a fifth to some one of the particular appetites. It is 
from the Will comes the determination between them, 



Chap.l.] ARGUMENT FROM CONSCIOUSNESS. 363 

and fixes the act. But suppose that on account of some 
one of these inducements the choice is made s A1 _ 

7 Other choice 

the question is often put, "Could the agent S^^oth- 
have chosen otherwise ?" And the reply often erwise? 
is, "No ; not unless there was a motive otherwise." But 
we rejoin, There was a motive, nay, several motives oth- 
erwise, all before the attention, and co-existing in the 
mind.* When the choice is made, it is of course made 
sequently upon some one of the motives ; and hence it is 
sometimes inferred therefrom that the relation of necessi- 
tative cause and effect existed between that motive and 
that volition. But on the hypothesis of freedom as truly 
as upon that of necessity, there is a motive that lies in 
immediate antecedency to the volition ; there is a reason 
last occurring before the choice, in sequence to which 
the Will, terminating the comparative survey, makes the 
choice. But it is not for want of other motives There is mo- 
that choice is made. The other motives co-exist wise. 
in view of the Will ; and the fact is, the Will, in and by 
choosing, brings the particular motive, on account of 
which it acts, into this last antecedency to its choice.f 
It does so by the very act of choosing sequently to it 
and on account of it. By this view we see how the full 
conscious power of the Will over all and each of the 
motives is consistently and clearly verified. 

But still further analysis perhaps will show that con- 
sciousness may take cognizance of the quali- Consc i OU sness 
ties of our mental operations, and that among me2tai ll ope S ra- f 
these qucdities necessity is cognized in the 
operations of the other faculties and non-necessity in 
those of the Will. If it is by consciousness that we 
know a volition from a perception, it must be because 
the qualities of each are cognized by consciousness. We 
can distinguish them only by their differences of quality. 
Nor are the true and final conclusions of all consciousness 
in regard to such qualities derived entirely from con- 
*Seep. 373. t See p. 79. 



364 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

sciousness alone, or at least from consciousness unaided 
by experience derived from other faculties. When con- 
sciousness judges the number, intensity, or rapidity of 
the inward operations, she applies to those operations a 
measurement derived from other faculties. The very 
faculty of knowing number is not consciousness, and yet 
the application of number shapes our conscious knowl- 
edge. And it is by a similar bringing from other faculties 
a discipline or a conception, that consciousness may judge 
the necessity of an operation. If consciousness, trained 
or supplied by other powers, can judge the intensity, 
why not the form and the fixedness of the form of a giv- 
en operation ? So consciousness judges that a sensation 
is necessitated. Power to pronounce an operation neces- 
sitated is also power to pronounce it non-necessitated. 
Consciousness adjudges the difference, and so knows the 
difference; and knowing the difference, she must know 
the differmxTS. If consciousness knows that a faculty is 
necessitated in its operations, she may know that another 
faculty is not. So, certainly, consciousness does ascer- 
tain that sensation or intellection is necessitated. When 
we raise the question of the necessitation of an intellection, 
we introspect the intellection, examine its traits in com- 
parison with the object, and judge. So also when we 
raise the question of the necessitation or non-necessitation 
of a volition, we may introspect the volition in compari- 
son with the motive, and pronounce upon its quality of 
of necessity necessary conforming with that motive. We 
as quality, judge this quality just as we judge any other 
quality in an internal operation. And we may correct 
or confirm this conscious decision by a conscious compar- 
ison between the traits of intellection and volition, just 
as we consciously learn to distinguish at all those two men- 
tal operations by conscious comparison, by their traits 
from each other. We shall then see that a conscious 
And non-ne- sense °f non-necessity is properly a conscious- 
cessity. negs f non-necessity, and that a conscious- 



Chap.l.] AKGUMENT FROM CONSCIOUSNESS. 365 

ness of non-necessity is a consciousness that a different 
volition is a perfectly supposable thing in presence of the 
same motive presentations. 

It is sometmYes argued that if a watch were conscious 
it would suppose itself to tick freely. If in this illustra- 
tion we reply, it is meant that a conscious soul be added 
of which the watch frame is the body, then Consciou3 
the tick, being bodily, would correspond to the Watch - 
spontaneous motions of our bodily frame, such as the 
beating of the heart. It would of course be felt to be un- 
free. If it be meant that the watch-frame itself becomes 
a spirit, and its ticks become volitions, then it is no longer 
a watch but a spirit ; its volitions are no longer ticks, 
and they are not movable by mechanical springs ; and 
so the illustration vanishes. It disposes of all such illus- 
trations to note that our perception of our own freedom 
depends upon the perfection of our consciousness. As 
our consciousness is, we perceive that our sensations and 
perceptions are unfree, but not our Will. Were our con- 
sciousness more perfect we should doubtless perceive the 
difference more clearly. But by a far less perfect con- 
sciousness the perception of the difference would be 
obliterated. If a watch were therefore in any way con- 
scious in sufficient perfection, it would be aware of free- 
dom to the tick, but not from. 

If the doctrine of consciousness, maintained by Sir 
William Hamilton, be true, then when we are conscious 
of a sense of power we are conscious of the power itself 
for either volition. According to that philosopher we 
are not only conscious of our knowing an object, but we 
are conscious of the object we know. If I am conscious 
that I cognize the planet Mars, the consciousness of the 
cognition of Mars is the consciousness of Mars as cog- 
nized. There can be no consciousness of consciousness 
knowledge of an object which is not conscious- as object. 



366 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [PartHI, 

ness of what the knowledge embraces. If so there can 
be no consciousness of a sense of a present power of al- 
ternative volition which is not a consciousness of the 
power itself. We have therefore a conscious power of 
free Will. 

II. Self-consciousness. But besides the view of con- 
sciousness, as thus limited by the definition of Reid, there 
is another presented by other philosophers, by which we 
might properly apply to the faculty the term Self-con- 
sciousness, as being the direct intuition of self and its 
powers by the conscious faculty. It 'feeems indeed a cir- 
cuitous route to the ascertainment of our own existence, 
and of our self, to make it an inference deduced from 
the premises furnished by consciousness. The obvious 
Direct know- consequence would seem to be that the exist- 
ingof self. ence f tne se jf j g j egg cer t am than the existence 

of thought. Do I not in pronouncing I, and reflectively 
casting inward my thought, consciously know myself? 
Do I not consciously know my being and my powers ? 
If so I may know by the same self-consciousness my Will, 
its attributes and efficiencies. I then understand this 
sense of power for an act not yet performed, and which 
And of its ^ s anterior and condition to the performance it- 
powers. ge }£ j can tnen a ^ g0 un d ers tand that I may 

possess a consciousness of power for an act that I never 
shall put forth; and that I do not need first to perform 
the act and then discover by inference that I possess the 
power for its performance. 

If next we look at the very nature of choice, it seems 
Choice in- *° ^ e an act which intrinsically might be with- 
wifhnofd?' held or put forth. Necessity imparts to the 
very idea of volition a rigidity and hardness 
not belonging to it. The flexibility and lenitude belong- 
ing to it disappear, and it receives a petrified, cubical, 
and mechanical quality unrecognized by consciousness. 
Hence also even necessitarians are usually dissatisfied 



Chap.l.] ARGUMENT FROM CONSCIOUSNESS. 367 

with the unnatural character which choice receives at 
their hands, and struggle to find something in it which 
their theory will allow to be called freedom. Between 
the view taken by the necessitarian as a philosopher and 
as a man there is a variance amounting to contradiction. 
Viewing the same thing at different moments, he is 
obliged to feel, and often to confess, that the results of 
his logic are irreconcilable with the perceptions of his 
natural consciousness. 

III. Sub-consciousness. From beneath our moral na- 
tures there come up the utterances of perhaps a deeper 
and yet more articulate intellectual consciousness than 
our analysis has hitherto reached. Let us scrutinize its 
dictates. 

The assumption that in the act of transgression I pos- 
sessed full power for contrary action lies at Moral assump- 
the base of all moral self-condemnation, all ter power. 
true repentance, all remorse. How deep in our nature 
are these feelings ! How terrible is remorse ! No part 
of our intuitive nature so clearly attests its own authori- 
ty as being the voice of God speaking, with a divine 
authority, within us. If any part of our being is infalli- 
ble it is this. And its language is, " Woe is me, for I 
choose death when I might have chosen life. I did wrong 
though in the full possession of the power of doing right. 
I yielded to the baser motive when I had full Four Affirm . 
power to have acted from the better and high- ation3, 
er." In these affirmations of the moral nature we are 
to note four things : 

1. They assume the axiom of responsibility that power 
underlies obligation ; that a man cannot be morally con- 
demned for non-performance of an act for which he has 
no power* In condemning himself for not doing other- 
wise, he grounds the whole process on the assumption 
that he could have done, that is, willed, otherwise. 

2. The power to do otherwise is assumed as existing 



368 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

in the self same circumstances ; that is, in the identical 
case. The affirmation is that the wrong volition was put 
forth with the full coexisting underlying power-other- 
wise. To affirm that he could have willed otherwise if 
other motives, or the same motives with different force, 
had reached him, is simply to affirm that he would have 
had power, not in the actual case, but in a case that did 
not exist. It would be to affirm that he had no power- 
otherwise at all. 

3. It is assumed that the strength of motives did not 
exclude the power to will otherwise in the given case. The 
superior force of a given motive does not excuse there- 
fore ; it does not nullify the counter power. On the con- 
trary, the very blame is for not rejecting the victorious 
motive. The very guilt is that the so-called strongest 
motive was obeyed. And so the very assumption is that 
there was power to reject the so-called strongest motive. 

4. This power-otherwise is assumed as existing, not 
merely for the external act, but for the diverse volition. 
Edwards has clearly shown that obligation or command 
rests not so much upon the external muscle or limb, as 
upon the Will. God commands us to choose his service, 
to will the right alternative, and to determine to prose- 
cute the path of holiness. 

But the point which it is our main purpose here to 
make is this. It is from the intellect, and not from itself, 
that the moral sense derives its assumption of power of 
otherwise willing in the self-same circumstances. It is 
an affirmation of the intellective consciousness. The 
moral sense assumes it because the intellect affirms it. 
Here, as in all cases, the moral sense pronounces its de- 
cisions upon the case as it is made up and presented by 
the intellect. The moral sense in effect says to* the intel- 
lectual consciousness: "I pronounce a responsibility or 
blame for this volition, because you affirm that there is 
power for a different volition." To authorize the sen- 



Chap. 2.] POSSIBILITY OF DIVINE COMMAND. 369 

tence the intellectual consciousness must respond, " The 
agent willed thus in full possession of the power of will- 
ing otherwise." That is, the responsibility is affirmed 
by the moral sense ; the existence of the counter power 
is affirmed by the intellectual consciousness. The doc- 
trine of the freedom of the human Will, there- counter power 
fore, is an axiom of the intellect affirmed by intellect. 
the common consciousness of all mankind. It is an in- 
born self-knowledge. 



CHAPTEE II. 

ARGUMENT FROM POSSIBILITY OF DIVINE COMMAND. 

It has been objected against the doctrine of volitional 
freedom that being in statement and conception a contra- 
diction, it is itself a nothing in the world. To Counter power 
attribute it to the agent therefore is to attrib- * nothin 0? 
ute nothing ; to deny it is to deny nothing. 

This, we reply, may be legitimately affirmed when both 
sides are brought to agreement that the con- 
ception of freedom is a contradiction. But for 
the opponent of freedom to decide that it is so, and then 
draw the inference, is simply an assumption of the point 
in debate. 

But if the assertion and conception of the sinner's 
power of doing otherwise than commit his Obligation 
actual deed of sin is contradictory, absurd, ^nothing 
and a nothing, then so must be the obligation, the re- 
quirement, and the command. If to attribute the power 
and the act be to attribute a nothing, then so must the 
obligation upon the power and for the act be a noth- 
ing. Then so must the requirement and the command 
for the exertion of the power in the act be a nothing. 
And all penalty for non-exertion of the power must be 

24 



370 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

penalty for nothing. And all retributory government 
founded in requirement for such act, as well as all pen- 
And an divine alty for its non-performance, is founded on 

nothing. nothing ; and such government has no status 
or possible rightful or real existence. From all which it 
follows that without a rational and real power of counter 
volition there can be no divine prohibition of actual sin, 
no just retribution for its commission, no divine govern- 
ment founded upon such retribution. That is, without 
the alternativity of the Will, its self-determining power, 
its power for either of several volitions in the given case, 
a divine government is impossible. Necessitarianism 
cannot frame a Theodice. The very possibility of divine 
command requires and demonstrates freedom. 

In Part III, sect, iv, Edwards undertakes to prove di 
Edwards's di- rect ly that necessitated volitions are proper 

rect argument. su "|3J ec t s of command and prohibition, and 
that inability and requirement are consistent. He argues, 
1 Requirement *• ^ * s tne Will in the exercise of volitions 

rests on will. w hi c h i s the proper object of command, rather 
than the external sequent act, as we have elsewhere* 
fully quoted. 2. When a generic volition, or predomi- 

2. Generics ne- nant leading purpose, is put forth, all the 

cessitate sub- 

ordinates. volitions subordinate and conformed to that 
leading purpose are necessitated to obey it, any obliga- 
tion or divine command to the contrary notwithstanding. 

3. Generics ai- 3 - The aforesaid generic volition or predom- 
so necessary. ma ti n g hias, which so necessitates the partic- 
ular subordinate volitions, is also necessary. For "the 
inclination is unable to change itself," because "it is 
Yet both nee- una hle to incline to change itself." 4. And yet, 

essary. though both the principal and the subordinate 
volitions are necessary, there being in the agent no voli- 
tional power to substitute or change them, most rightfully 
may divine command be imposed upon the Will, (which is 
the point to be proved,) requiring an opposite purpose, 
* See p. 240. 



Chap. 2.] POSSIBILITY OF DIVINE COMMAND. 371 

bias, or volition instead, whether principal or subordinate, 
to exist. For either such command, so requiring an op- 
posite, is right, or, 5. The alternative consequence would 
logically follow, (as even Arminians must admit,) that no 
command could be imposed but such as required the 
actually existing volition, or one that will exist. 
But this alternative consequence would make 
command and volition always necessarily to coincide; 
the command must accord with the act; and then, con- 
sequently, obedience would be a necessity ! And so the 
Arminian (who denies that "law and command are con- 
sistent with necessity") would " overthrow himself! !" 

With this slender ratiocination we may perhaps make 
short work. Arminians reject the necessity of both the 
general volition and its subordinates,* and so have 
nothing to do with the dilemma of alternatives deduced. 
Of the two horns of the dilemma we re- 
ject both ; since, if the volitions are necessary, 
we hold that neither counter command nor coinciding 
command would be suitable; for a necessitation is the 
suitable subject of no command at all. Very ludicrous 
is the necessity into which Edwards makes us "over- 
throw" ourselves; namely, a necessity of the divine 
command to coincide with our volitions; a necessity 
which is laid indeed upon the divine command, An absurd 
but which imposes no limitation upon the free- necessity. 
dom of the human Will ; a necessity indeed too absurd 
for discussion. 

We now deny that the generic volition is always nec- 
essary and unchangeable ; and we deny that the subordin- 
ate is always necessitated to obey it. If we sustain this 
denial, the right of command against necessity is unsus- 
tained. Let us examine the argument. 

It is maintained by Edwards that a volitional agent, 
while under the influence of a prevalent inclination, is 
necessitated thereto because he is unable to put forth a 
* See p. 168. 



372 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

volition in a contrary direction, in the following terms : 
No counter pow- "The Will in the time of that diverse or op- 

er against incli- x 

nation? posite leading act or inclination, and when 

actually under the influence of it, is not able to exert 
itself to the contrary, to make an alteration in order to 
a compliance. The inclination is unable to change it- 
self; and that for this plain reason, that it is unable to 
incline to change itself. Present choice cannot at pres- 
ent choose to be otherwise; for that would be at present 
to choose something diverse from what is at present 
chosen."— P. 232. 

The first question here is, What is meant by inclina- 
what is in- tions ? As we have in the proper place defined 
ciination? j^ tne term m ^s strict meaning applies to the 
feelings antecedent to, cotemporaneous with, or sequent 
upon the volition. We are inclined to a thing, often, be- 
fore we choose it. We choose it often in spite of a con- 
trary inclination. After a volition has resolved the agent 
into a state of determination upon a course or object, in- 
clinations one or more may be against. There may 
various inclinations coexist in the mind at the same mo- 
Coexistent ment ; and during a very brief period the soul 
contrarieties. ma y fl uc tuate through a great variety of agi- 
tations, tendencies, biases, impulses, repugnances, and 
inclinations. And none of these may reach the Will. 
There may be not a volition in the matter. The Will is 
not so properly said to be inclined, nor are its acts in- 
clinations. The instantaneous act of Will is a volition ; 
the permanent state of Will is purpose, resolution, de- 
termination, predetermination. By inclination as ap- 
plied to Will nothing else can be meant than the determ- 
ination or purpose. 

Dismissing the criticism of terms, the argument of Ed- 
wards, if it have any meaning, must imply that while we 
entertain a volitional purpose we cannot change that 
purpose. 

1. The statement may signify that the purpose is fullv 



Chap. 2.] POSSIBILITY OF DIVINE COMMAND. 378 

present to the mind or attention ; and so present to the 
mind as to possess it entirely, excluding all Excluded. 
counter thought, object, feeling, or motive. In possible. m 
this sense, and while this entire engrossment lasts, it is 
true that the mind cannot change the purpose ; but this 
is irrelevant to the discussion. Where a counter course 
is excluded from mental knowledge or possible attention 
so as not to come as alternative before the mind, the 
agent cannot indeed choose it. This has been fully- 
stated under the conditions of Will. 

2. For a similar reason, if a purpose or determination 
be, after its first formation, deposited in the Forgotten. 
mind and memory, yet dismissed from the at- possible. m 
tention, it cannot while it and its subject are thus ex- 
cluded from the mental view be reversed by the Will. 

3. But when the determination is before the mind it 
may, even while it exists, submit to a change Presented 
by the Will. Does the necessitarian really impossible. 
mean to say that a man cannot change his purpose, or re- 
verse his determination, or break a resolution ? Such a 
statement would be absurd. Now this change or re- 
versal must take place while the purpose or determina- 
tion yet exists ; and the cessation of the existence of the 
purpose must in the order of nature be consequent upon the 
change. It is not true then that " the Will in the time of 
that diverse or opposite leading act or inclination " (or 
volitional purpose) cannot "change" that inclination or 
purpose. 

The volition is often counter to the inclination ; nay, 
even to the stronger and prevalent inclinations, volition 

__ . t • i counter to 

The Will often acts in contradiction to the inclination. 
most intense passion, the strongest temptation, the deep- 
est impression.* The opposite feeling and the volition 

* With a crude philosophy the Princeton Essayist, like other necessi- 
tarians, assumes that the mind must be completely occupied with one 
*' bias " which excludes aU coexistent contrarieties. " Will any one pre- 
tend that it is conscious of a power to choose contrariwise, its ruling in- 



374 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

often coexist in the mind at the same instant. We do 
what we intensely dislike ; we decline what we intensely 
desire. We arrest our inclinations in full current by a 
strong counter effort of Will. Freedom thus exerts it- 
self against the tide of necessity. In this meaning, 
therefore, the statements of Edwards are psychologically 
false. 

" The inclination," says Edwards, " cannot change it- 
self." Very true. But the man himself can change his 
win can inclinations. He can incline himself a different 
ciination. way and to a different object. " Present choice 
cannot at present choose to be otherwise." Choice cannot 
indeed choose to be otherwise, for a choice cannot choose 
at all. But the being who at the present instant chooses 
one alternative, may at the next choose an opposite. 
An agent who is under one inclination or direction of 
Will, in the presence of different possibilities, is not un- 
der disability of change of choice. When the alterna 
tives of choosing or retaining the purpose are before the 
attention, the purpose may be simply a motive for its 
own retention or prosecution, and the agent is able to 
decide the question by Will. 

ciination or pleasure being and continuing to choose as it has chosen ?" 
— P. 254. What is meant by a ruling inclination's choosing, or a pleas- 
ure's choosing, we pretend not to say. But that the most intense feeling 
may coexist with a contrary volition, and may be overruled 
men tal co- by it, is an ordinary fact of consciousness. What varieties 
existent con- f thought may coexist at the same instant in the mind, 
philosophers have too little realized. A man walks a nar- 
row path, twirls his watch key, looks at a prospect, talks to a friend, 
and thinks of something else, all at the same moment. What volitions, 
perceptions, emotions, and abstractions, like so many little wheels in vari- 
ous simultaneous whirl, are that instant going on in his mind ! Several 
distinct trains of volitions are going on together. Lord Brougham has a 
curious passage on the multitude of intellections occupying the mind of 
a public speaker at the moment. De Quincy gives the narrative of a 
lady who was drowned and recovered. At the drowning instant, " In 
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, every act, every design of her past 
life lived again, arraying themselves, not in succession, but as parts of a 
coexistence. Her consciousness became omnipresent at one moment to 
every feature in the infinite review." 



Cliap.3.] EXCELLENCE AND DESERT. 375 

If, then, the generic volition and purpose is not itself 
necessary, and does not necessitate the volitions which 
subordinate themselves to it, if they in their acceptance 
or rejection of the generic volition are free, then the ar- 
gument of Edwards, drawn from the fact that a com- 
mand or obligation may be imposed requiring them to be 
substituted or withdrawn or not put forth, fails And therefore 

fi'GG fincl 1*6- 

to prove that necessitated volitions are proper sponsible. 
objects of counter command. Our original argument 
stands untouched, that freedom is necessary to the possi- 
bility of obligation, command, or divine Government. 
An obligatory command requiring an impossibility is it- 
self impossible. The possibility of divine command re- 
quires freedom. 



CHAPTER III. 

DISTINCTION BETWEEN AUTOMATIC EXCELLENCE 
AND MORAL DESERT. 

An automaton is a machine, constructed sometimes in 
the human form, whose parts, by force of in- Automaton 
terior springs, are made to operate apparently matic. 
like a human system, with self-motion. The movement 
of the parts is necessitatively caused to take place, in 
precise proportion and in the direction of the forces ap- 
plied. When the whole is artistically framed, we admire 
the beauty, the ingenuity, and perhaps the imitation — 
that is, the automatic excellence. But we attribute not 
to its action or its being the slightest intrinsic quality of 
moral merit or demerit. 

The highest order of mechanical or automatic excel- 
lence is found in a watch. So numerous and nice are its 
parts, so exquisitely adjusted are its forces, and so beau- 
tiful is its aspect to the eye, that we gaze upon it with 



376 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

admiration. And then, in the pointing of its hand to the 
figure according to the true time, we behold one of the 
most wonderful adjustments of mechanism to the de- 
mands of mind. With but slight fancy we attribute to 
it the qualities of truth and reliability, or of falsehood 
and fickleness. We wish it gently handled according to 
its excellent nature. And yet, literally and coolly, we 
attribute only automatic excellence; and we are utterly 
No automatic una ble to see in it the slightest intrinsic trace 
desert. f mora i mer it or demerit. We are unable to 
see in it guilt or good desert ; we are, by the very nature 
of things, compelled to deny of it the possibility of pen- 
alty or reward. 

Should the question be asked why, in a thing which is 
so noble and so pleasing to sesthetical sense, all moral 
merit must be denied, the answer might be, because it 
has no consciousness, and so cannot be made happy by 
reward or miserable by penalty. That this is an insuffi- 
cient answer may be made evident by an additional sup- 
position. Imagine the automaton endowed with sensi- 
bility in every particle of its substance ; and that it is 
consciously impressed by every contact, and every force 
applied, and feels every movement it is made to undergo. 
Yet it is still an automaton, being moved solely in the 
proportion and in the direction of the forces applied. 
Its every operation is the exact mechanical measure of 
the causation. It is plain that its sensibility has not en- 
dowed it with the possibility of moral blame or merit, 
and for a very plain reason. It is seen not to be truly 
the author of its own actions. It moves only as it is 
moved. It acts only as its springs are touched. It has 
only the freedom to, not the freedom from. There ex- 
ists not in its entire being any power to 
move otherwise than as the fixed and constant 
result of the force received. Its operations are the ne- 
cessitated effects of necessitative causations. It is guilt- 
less, undeserving, irresponsible, because it can act no 



Chap. 3.] EXCELLENCE AND DESEKT. 377 

otherwise than it does act. Common-sense demands not 
only sensibility but free self-control. We thence deduce 
the law, which is (apart from self-superinduction) uni- 
versal and apodictical, that no act can he morally obliga- 
tory, responsible, or guilty — no agent can be morally 
obligated, rewardable, or punishable — unless there be in 
the agent adequate power for other act than the act in 
question. 

Rising from mechanical into animal existence, we 
recognize in the horse, for instance, every com- Animal au . 
bination of both material and mental automatic tomatism - 
excellence. Beauty of form, color, and motion, adjust- 
ment of parts for strength and speed, balance of forces 
there are, so as to fit him for his place in the economy of 
creation. And then in his mind there is just such a pro- 
portionment of perceptive faculties and emotions as to 
produce that train of volitions and actions as will suit him 
to his intended uses. If, on the other hand, his disposi- 
tions be so badly proportioned as to produce irregular 
and refractory action, we apply severity or blandishment 
as we do the means to repair the watch, as a regulative. 
It is simply an alterative. That alterative is not a justice 
but an expedient. By applying the impulses of pain and 
fear, we alter the balance of forces and produce better 
modes and habits of action. We may thus so rearrange, 
that both mind and body may present again the model 
of automatic excellence. But being a simple automatic 
though mental organism, we have not yet found a parti- 
cle of moral merit. 

The beauty of appearance, the skill of the artist, the 
adaptation to the ends, the perfection of the working, 
and the value of the results — these are the qualities 
of automatic excellence. When we find these in body 
or mind, we admire, love, and desire them. We appro- 
priate the article to ourselves, confer upon it values and 
preferences. We make of the whole class pets, orna- 
ments, and enjoyments. On the contrary, where the 



378 THE POSITIVE AKGUMENT STATED. [Part HI, 

automatism of thing or animal is defective, ugly, or 
offensive, we render it our disgust or hatred. We repel 
:t from use, and are ready to abandon it to misery or 
destruction. But if we examine our feelings we shall 
Excellent but find them purely non-ethical ; we shall find our 
rious. selves absolutely unable to attribute to it the 

least element of moral merit or demerit. Its ugliness 
and its beauty, its precise action or mal-action, is not 
its own fault ; it is entirely automatic. 

But is the animal Will or action automatic? Yes, as 
truly as the machine, if it be necessitated. Just as auto- 
matically an object strikes the retina, so automatically 
the perception rises. As automatically the perception, 
so automatically the highest desire. As automatically 
the highest desire, so automatically the volition. And 
as automatically the volition, so automatically the 
action. So the whole round of impulses and effects 
are automatic because all are necessitated, and alike 
necessitated. The volition is here no less necessitated, 
and so no less automatic, than the perception or the 
desire. 

But suppose that, as one term in this series of automatic 
Ethical inter- m ental states or operations, there should be in- 
poiation. gerted a feeling, automatically rising, of right or 
wrong, of blame or moral approval. Suppose that, after 
one automatic volition, a consequent feeling of guilt or 
of merit should emerge. The question then is, Would 
this entire automatic organism of intellect, however clear, 
of sensibility, however acute, of volition, however exact, 
and of moral feeling, howeyer intense, constitute a moral 
being, truly capable of blamable and rewardable acts ? 
Common sense can give only a negative answer. The 
feeling of blame or praise would be an arbitrary interpo- 
lation, false in its affirmations and absurd in its nature. 
It would be out of place. Should that feeling assume 
that the volitions of an organism which possessed, in the 
given instance, no power for the production of any but 



Chap. 3.] EXCELLENCE AND DESERT. 379 

that volition, were guilty or morally approvable, its 
assumption would be untrue. 

In an automatic organism it can make no difference 
what the substance composing its series or system of 
parts, whether matter, electricity, or spirit ; or whether 
the connection of its constituent elements or pieces be a 
current, or an emotion, or a ligature, or a volition ; pro- 
vided the whole series do but transmit from part to part 
a fixed force, and a necessary action, landing in a solely 
possible result. We are as able to imagine what may 
with propriety be called a spiritual as a material ma- 
chine. Of a machine nothing stronger can be said than 
that the causative action of one part upon the other 
secures the solely possible result ; and that can as truly 
be said of a mental organism as of a material organ- 
ism; and as truly said of a resulting volition as of a 
resulting intellection or of a resulting mechanical mate- 
rial motion. Such a spiritual machine would Aspir5tual 
be made of a conscious center and sensitive machine - 
parts. Intellect, sensibility, and Will would be its con- 
stituents; just as weights, wheels, and hands are the 
constituents of a clock. And just as the gravitative 
force may pass from weights to wheels, and from wheels 
to hands, and may bring the hand to a particular figure, 
so may the motive force pass from intellect to sensibility, 
and from sensibility to Will, and bring the Will to a 
given volition. The determination of the clock pointer 
may be no more fixed and necessitated than the determ- 
ination of a volition. The causations may, in both cases, 
be as inevitable. If they are not equally mechanical, the 
difference is essentially verbal ; consisting in the fact that 
the word mechanical is normally applied only to mate- 
rial organisms. But all that renders a mere mechanical 
action of a conscious machine incapable of moral respons- 
ibility exists in the case ; namely, a necessitation anteced- 
ently fixing the given volitional action. Nor is there the 
slightest validity in the notion of some thinkers, who 



880 THE POSITIVE AKGUMENT STATED. [Partlfl, 

imagine that the very fact of its being a volition, and 
not some other thing or event, secures its responsibility. 
Ask them why a volition is responsible, and their only 
reply is, Because it is a volition. A volition, necessita- 
tively affixed to the agent, is no more responsible than 
any other attribute, event, operation, or fact. 

The human constitution is a compound of the spiritual 
machine and the bodily machine, co-operating in a sort 
of "pre-established harmony." The action of forces 
from the external world strikes through the corporeal 
frame inward to the spiritual organism, reaching its 
central power of action; and, from that central power, 
action comes forth through the corporeal frame upon 
the external world. If this process be simply action and 
fixed reaction, producing a solely possible result, then the 
whole process is, so far as responsibility is concerned, 
as non-ethical as any case of mechanical impulse and 
recoil. 

The impulse of rays from the beautiful fruit strikes 
the retina of an eye, and the perception of the exact 
form and force by necessitation automatically rises. The 
The . human impulse of perception necessitates the strong- 
tomaton. est desire automatically to arise. The moral 
emotion being automatically neutralized, the impulse of 
strongest desire strikes the Will, and automatically the 
volition springs forth, and from the volitional impulse 
the automatic action. The automatic corporeal action 
springs no more mechanically from the volition than the 
automatic .volition from the automatic desire, and that 
from the automatic perception, and that from the ray 
of light, and that from the fruit. We admire or condemn 
the excellent or defective automatism; but the mere 
arbitrary interpolation of an automatic moral emotion in 
the series calls not for the attribution by us of any moral 
merit or blame to the organism, or any part of its auto- 
matic action or substance. 

We thus demonstrate that if the volition be as neces- 



Chap. 3.] EXCELLENCE AND DESERT. 381 

sitated as the emotion, the emotion as the 

,. ,-, ,. ,, . . Irresponsible. 

perception, the perception as the receptivity 
of the retina, then the whole automatic chain forms a 
circle of automatic force as irresponsible as the streak of 
an electric circle. It is impossible for logic to show or 
common sense to see any more responsibility or moral 
merit or demerit in the necessitated volition than in the 
necessitated emotion, the necessitated perception, or the 
necessitated receptivity of the retina, or the necessitated 
visual ray, or the necessitated fruit. 

Nor can the universal common-sense of mankind see 
that volition, and emotion, and perception, and sensorial 
retina, necessitatively subjected to automatic effect from 
automatic impulsions, are any more imputable with 
moral merit or demerit, praise or blame, reward or 
penalty, than a similar succession of material automatic 
parts, under exact and necessary physical forces. We 
can only find non-meritorious excellence. If this be true, 
then necessitated volition is non-responsible volition ; and 
if none but necessitated volitions universally exist, moral 
responsibility has no existence in the universe. The 
" common-sense of mankind " recognizes morality pri- 
marily in volition alone, and not in mere perception, 
because it recognizes in volition alone non-necessitation. 

If we consider a Washington * as a living system of 
mental and bodily parts and forces so balanced ; if clear 
perceptions and sagacious intellect were so proportioned 
with emotions of honor, patriotism, heroism, and 
self-sacrifice, as necessitatively to create that train of 
grand volitions by which he saved his country, then in 
body, intellect, and Will he was a most noble specimen 

* " Is Washington entitled to no credit for giving freedom to his coun- 
try, unless it can be proved that he was equally inclined to betray it?" 
(Day on the Will, p. 116.) The question is falsely put. We do not 
hold that it was necessary that he should be equally "inclined to be- 
tray it ;" but that he should be susceptible to the temptation and pos- 
sessed of adequate power for the volition to betray it. Otherwise, we 
praise him for the non-performance of an impossible act. 



382 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

of merely automatic excellence. We should admire him 
as a most perfect living and acting colossus. We would 
love him and wish him all happiness, just as we love and 
wish well to all noble automatism. But he is only for- 
tunate ; he is no more meritorious, morally, than Bene- 
dict Arnold. His was only a happier fate. 

Washington was, as. we view the matter, meritorious, 
How is a wash- because, being volitionally able to prefer to 

ington merito- .. . . . . __ x , 

rious? betray his country he saved it. He saved it 

amid temptations appealing to his apparent self-interest, 
his love of ease, and his fear of danger. He served his 
country after the Revolution by rejecting the motives that 
would lead him to a Napoleonic self-aggrandizement. 
The very magnanimity of his character consists in his 
choosing in accordance with right motives, in preference 
to powerful wrong ones, possible to him and present 
before him. He could have yielded to the wrong; he 
chose to act by the right. 

With regard to the human Will of our Saviour, we 
concede that the automatism, if really existent, negatives 
the merit. Were his a mere automatic Will, 
he would be a great mechanical figure in the 
grand panorama of redemption, striking as an automatic 
adjustment, but destitute of essential moral character. 
We hold, that from the infinity of all possible human 
souls Omniscience selected that one which, in the great 
crisis of the case, it foresaw would stand, though free 
to fall. 

Still more appalling is the degradation of the divine 
Will to a mechanical automatism. A god like the evil 
omnipotence of Manes, who, from the eternal necessity 
of his own nature, has no adequate power for the pro- 
duction of a good volition, would be a being horribly 
evil, but not responsibly evil. A god automatically 
good, mechanically good, might be held excellent. But 
he would not be meritoriously excellent. We should 
concede to him an infinite strength in only one way. He 



Chap. 3.] EXCELLENCE AND DESERT. 383 

would be a cramped omnipotence, an almightiness not 
full-orbed, but mutilated and incapable — a blasphemous 
contradiction. 

And so the moral merit of all beings, finite or infinite, 
arises from this, that in their proportion of power, space, 
and time, they, in the possession of the full and complete 
volitional power of doing wrong, do persistently and 
freely that which is right. A finite being does thus 
finitely, an infinite being infinitely. 

If God were to create a being of perceptions, emotions, 
and volitions, all perfectly excellent and well XT 
adjusted, yet all necessary and automatic in not y me e rttorf. 
their action, so that every volition, like the ous - 
pointers of a perfectly true clock, should point exactly 
right, such a being would be innocent and lovely, and 
in that sense of lovely innocence it might be called holy. 
It could not be punishable. We should aesthetically ad- 
mire it; we should sympathetically love it; we should 
wish it happy in a condition accordant to its nature. Yet 
we should none the less hold it incapable of moral re- 
sponsibility, moral merit or demerit, moral good or evil 
desert, moral reward or penalty. Nor could it, even by 
Omnipotence itself, be invested with a morally meritori- 
ous holiness. All its holiness would be simply a lovely 
and excellent automatic innocence or purity. The sum 
of all this is, that a necessitated holiness is no meritori- 
ous or morally deserving holiness. 

Again, should God create an automatic fiend ; a being 
whose perceptions were, indeed, true, but whose emo- 
tions were purely and with a perfect intensity, yet auto- 
matically, malignant ; and whose volitions were, with all 
their strength, automatically bad ; we should hate such 
a being and wish it out of our way. We might still ad- 
mire its vicious perfection. Yet, when we had indulged 
our abhorrence of it, and come to remember coolly its 
automatism, we should see that, though bad, it was un- 
blamably bad. Its volitions, being as necessitated, are 



384 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part HI, 

Necessitated as irresponsible as the springs of a gun-lock, 
fiendishness. Upon such a fiend, if the infliction of pain 
would set his volitions right, and make all his move- 
ments safe and beneficial, we should, for the common 
good, think expedient to inflict it, simply as an altera- 
tive ; just as we would insert a key and turn it round to 
set any other machinery right — simply as an alterative. 
Such infliction of pain could not be a punishment, in the 
sense of justice, or execution for a responsible crime. It 
would simply be an expedient, like a medicine or a me- 
chanical adjustment, in which there can be no moral 
element. We might, for the good of the world, wish 
such a being destroyed ; not as a moral retribution to 
him, but for the common weal, and, if possible, pain- 
lessly. The sum of all which is, a necessitated depravity 
is no responsible or justly punishable depravity. As 
there is, therefore, what may be called a holiness without 
any meritoriousness or moral good desert, so there is 
what may be called a depravity, or a sin, without any 
responsibility or morally penal desert. 

From all the above representations we derive the an- 
swer to the question concerning the possibility of a 
created holiness or a created unholiness. A created 
holiness would be necessitated and automatic. It might 
therefore be excellent, innocent, pure, lovely; but it 
never could be meritorious, responsible, probationary, 
rewardable, punishable. A created unholiness would be 
also automatic. It might be automatically excellent, in- 
nocent, yet unlovely, hateful, repulsive, perhaps destruct- 
ive. Yet it is below the conditions of responsibility, 
desert, probation, judgment, retribution. The being is 
evil, perhaps *we may say morally evil ; but not responsi- 
bly or guiltily evil. 

If by morally evil we mean evil as compared with the 
standard of the moral law, the phrase would be correct. 
If by morally evil we mean evil so as that the penalty 
of the law is justly applicable, the phrase would be in- 



Chap. 3.] EXCELLENCE AND DESERT. 385 

correct. There would be necessitated disconformity to 
the moral law ; but the conditions of amenability to its 
penalty would not exist. 

Thus man, as born after the fall, possesses, even before 
any volitional act of his own, a fallen nature. As com- 
pared with what, by the perfect* law of God, he ought 
to be, he is wrong, evil, morally evil. Yet, as not being 
the author of his own condition, he is not responsible for 
his necessitatively received nature and moral state. His 
nature is no fault of his own until fully appropriated by 
the act of his own free-will. That nature and state may 
doubtless be called sm, but only under a cer- IrresponS i ble 
tain definition of the word. If all sin be sin - 
anomia? a disconformity to the law, then there may be 
a sinful nature or state, as well as a sinful act. But 
where that nature or state is necessitatively received by 
the being, without his Will, or received only by the act 
of a necessitated Will, if sinful, it is not responsibly sin- 
ful. It thence would follow that there may be discon- 
formity to the law, unrighteousness, evil, moral evil, sin, 
sinfulness, all without responsibility, guilt, ill desert, just 
moral condemn ality, or punishment. 

The whole human race, viewed as fallen in Adam, and 
apart from redemption through Christ, is thus necessi- 
tatedly unholy. It is in disconformity with the ideal 
prescribed by the divine law. Judged by the standard 
of the moral law, it is evil ; and, in the sense above de- 
fined, it is morally evil. But it is not responsibly evil. 
It cannot be retributively, and in the strict sense of the 
word, punished. Incapable it is, indeed, of the holiness 
and so of the happiness of heaven. It rests under the 
displacency of Heaven as not being holy in the 

. Fallen race. 

sense of conformed to his law, which is but the 

transcript of his own character and the expression of his 

own divine feelings. What is to be done with it ? is a 

question for Divine Wisdom to solve. It can come from 

* 1 John iii, 4. 
25 



386 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

a potential and seminal existence into actual existence 
only under the universal law of hereditary natural like- 
ness to the lineal parent. The whole race is thus and 
then conceptually a generic unit, including the primordial 
parent and all his posterity. "What would have been 
done with them without a saviour? is a question to 
Grace and which revelation furnishes no explicit answer, 
nature. ^ n( j j e ^ there are g roun <l s both from Scripture 
and reason for an obvious reply. The human race would 
never have been actually brought into existence under 
conditions of such misery. In other words, the redemp- 
tion was the condition of the actual continuity of the 
race. Redemption underlies probationary existence. 
Grace is the basis of nature. And the reply is both a 
satisfactory and a beautiful theoretical solution of a theo- 
retical difficulty. 

If a being be, like Adam, created pure and disposed 
to right, yet as an agent freely able to choose right or 
wrong, his holiness, as created and before his free act, is 
pure and excellent. Yet it is not meritorious. It can 
claim no moral approbation or moral reward. His first 
meritorious and morally deserving personal holiness is 
derived from action. And that action must be voli- 
tion put forth with full and adequate power of contrary 
action instead. 

Again, if God should create or allow to be born a being 
various con- of mixed character, (suppose it to be man,) the 
sponsfbiiity. automatic spring of whose volitions, under the 
touch of automatic motive forces, should be necessitative- 
ly sometimes in an injurious direction, and sometimes in 
a beneficial direction, such a being might be automati- 
cally excellent and perfect, but he would be below the 
conditions of probationary existence. His good or bad 
volitions being automatic, would be equally irresponsible 
and unmeriting of reward or penalty. Any ideas or no- 
tions implanted in his own nature of retributive approval 
or condemnation would be arbitrary and false. 



Chap. 3.] EXCELLENCE AND DESERT. 387 

Let us now suppose a being, such as man truly is, of a 
mixed character in another respect. Suppose him auto- 
matic in his perceptions, emotions, and desires, yet free 
and alternative in his volitions ; capable of choosing 
either of diverse ways in a right direction or in a wrong 
instead. He is now no longer in a pure automatic nature. 
He has mounted into the grade of a morally responsible 
being. He is henceforth capable of probation, responsi- 
bility, judgment, and retribution. 

Again, let us suppose that this last being is able, by 
his free volitions, to modify his automatic propensions ; 
namely, his intellections, emotions, and desires, so as to 
make them better or worse than they naturally were. 
Either he neglects to restrain them from excess or wrong 
direction ; or he directs, impels, develops, trains, and en- 
larges them for wrong ; or he restrains and confines them 
to their proper degree and to a right direction. Even 
his automatic faculties would thence derive a sort of sec- 
ondary responsible character ; at least for much, if not 
for all their so formed character, he would be volitionally 
and morally responsible. It is thus that a man's sensi- 
bilities, intellections, emotions, and beliefs become sec- 
ondarily and consequentially responsible. Again, a man 
may so train up into magnitude and force of will his au- 
tomatic faculties as to render suppressed his freedom of 
volition for any good; and thus he is automatically 
evil. Such volitional automatism for evil being self-super- 
induced, is responsible ; since where a man has freely 
annihilated his own power for good, he is responsible 
for the evil. Self- superinduced necessity is a responsible 
necessity. And from this view we can clearly understand 
how the sinner who is given up of God, or the sinner 
finally damned, who sins and only sins, and that by a 
perpetual necessity, is responsible for his sins none the 
less. The holiness of the saints in heaven is none the 
less rewardable because it has become necessary ; they 
are rewardable, not only for their works during proba- 



388 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part HI, 

tion, but for their works of holiness, obedience, love, and 
praise before God in heaven. 

Finally from all this we educe three corollaries : 

1. The necessitated volitional agent is with truth pro- 
Unfree agent nounced by freedomists to be an automatism, a 

twitl/lf Q. MA.» 

chine. machine. And the replies of Edwards and 

Day, that he is not a machine because he is a living, in- 
tellectual, volitional being, are without validity. 

2. The imputation that necessitarianism is Fatalism is 
Unfreedom- true and just. If all volitional agents are ma- 

. fatalism, chines, still more confessedly so are all physical 
organisms and substances. All physical and all volitional 
machines thereby combine into one great interlocking 
machine. And this frames the Universe, including God 
himself, into one great clock-work. The limitless Whole 
thereby becomes an infinite eternal machine ; than which 
there is no conceivably completer fatalism. 

3. Just penalty can never be held as a mere preventive 
of future wrongs. Thus the Younger Edwards says: 
" It is inquired, Where is the consistence between God's 
laying a man under a moral necessity of sinning, and 
then punishing for that sin? I answer, How can God 
consistently make a man sick and then apply medicines 
or any remedy toward his restoration ? Punishment is 
inflicted to prevent either the subject of the punishment 
or others from falling into the same practice." — P. 444. 

This explains punishment as method, not as a pure 
justice. So the JCnglish judge says to the condemned 
culprit : " Tou are not hung for stealing a sheep ; but 
you are hung that sheep may not be stolen." The first 
clause of this piece of information excludes the consid- 
eration of intrinsic justice ; the last states the ground of 
pure expediency. By intrinsic justice, as cognized by 
the moral intuition, there is a moral relation between 
responsible crime and desert of penalty as essential, 
as eternal, as absolute as the relation between the 
circularity of a figure and the equality of its radii. 



Chap. 4.] CREATED MORAL DESERT IMPOSSIBLE. 389 

But expediency is simply a contrivance in social mechanics. 
It is the mere principle of turning a peg to regulate the 
machine. Or, as Edwards here puts it, it is the physical 
remedy for a physical disease. If God manages his sys- 
tem upon this bleak principle, as the argument of Ed- 
wards obliges him to maintain, justice and true retribu- 
tion have no existence in it. There is, then, under his 
hand an organism of great physical clock-work, but 
strictly speaking no moral government at all. Suffering 
inflicted to produce right action is expediency ; suffering 
inflicted to meet the demands of intuitive right is justice. 
Both these may well meet in the same case; but they 
are not the same in essence. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CREATED MORAL DESERT IMPOSSIBLE. 

The maxim laid down by Mr. Bledsoe in his Theodice 
and used by him with great argumentative effect, that 
there can be no created virtue or viciousness, ought, ac- 
cording to the doctrine of our last chapter, to read, there 
can be no created moral desert, good or evil, True maxim 
and so corrected it would lose none of the bmty. 
argumentative efficiency with which his handling invests 
it. There can be a created conformity or disconformity 
to the divine law ; but no created merit or demerit there- 
in or therefor, or desert of reward or penalty. 

The righteous law, let us say, has a twofold office, 
namely, the judicatory or critical, and the D 0Uble office 
retributive or penal. In its former character of Law - 
it is an ethical ideal by which is tested the active real ; 
it is the rule by which the ethical character of its sub- 
jects is admeasured. That subject, if automatic, if created 



390 THE POSITIVE AKGUMEtfT STATED. [PartHI, 

and having moral status anterior to free volitional 
action, is still tested by the law's ideal, is comrneasured 
by the perfect rule ; but there the office of the law stops. 
The instant it should proceed to use its retributive func- 
tion and inflict penalty, it would be by its own rectitude 
condemned. But the moment free volitional moral ac- 
tion commences, the result is accountability ; and retrib- 
utive righteousness or unrighteousness inhere to his 
personality and being. 

It might be said, then, that if the agent is not free, the 
law has nothing to do with him, inasmuch as he lacks the 
qualification of a subject of the law. And we might 
grant that the law scarcely is his judge ; but only an in- 
strument, as an ethical critique, to estimate the quality of 
the agent necessitated as good or bad without responsi- 
bility. Yet when the agent is placed, like Adam, at the 
historical commencement of a legal governmental system, 
the law is installed already over him, and it is its office 
to pronounce, even if it pronounce that it has no jurisdic- 
tion, and that he cannot come into court. In such case 
the agent is necessarily placed in some relation to the 
law, and the law pronouncing must, as we conceive, pro- 
nounce him ethically but not retributively holy. 

First we may suppose a being created in a world of 
chrysolite, where no external object afforded temptation 
Freedom to or possibility of wrong or sin ; with a body of 
good alone. fl ex ible chrysolite affording no propensity or 
power of corporeal sin; with a set of sensibilities so 
measured that there could be neither excess, deficiency, 
or irregularity of action ; with an intellect from which 
all thought of wrong should be absolutely excluded. His 
world might offer to his free choice a thousand varying 
avenues of right and equally right action. He would be free 
to good alone. That good would properly be moral good. 
And as a being of precisely the opposite nature and con- 
dition might be conceived, free only to varieties of evil, 
so there would be the true contrast of a perfect moral 



Chap. 4.] CREATED MORAL DESERT IMPOSSIBLE. 391 

goodness or badness. And as these beings are so created, 
there is a created goodness or badness anterior to action ; 
and both may be complete and perfect in their kind, yet 
neither retributively so. 

Second, we may suppose a being, like Adam, created 
with soul perfectly right. His preferential feel- Created rec , 
ings anterior to action accord with the divine titude - 
law. His sensibilities are so under easy volitional con- 
trol, his mind is so clear and pure, that all in its primi- 
tive undisturbed state is right. His Will is able to hold 
his whole being in subordination to the Moral Impera- 
tive. He is, in his grade of being, perfectly excellent ; 
and his excellence is not mechanical merely or aesthetical, 
but ethical. It is moral excellence ; it is a created moral 
excellence, and perfect in its kind, yet wholly unmerito- 
rious. 

That the former of these two supposed holy beings by 
creation could not sin is doubtless clear; that the lat- 
ter could sin may, by a little consideration, How able t0 
seem equally clear. Though the prevolitional sm# 
preferential feelings are accordant with the Law, yet the 
various desires and appetites have their specific objects ; 
and those objects may be so presented as to excite the 
appetencies above measure unless the Will either firmly 
exclude the influence of the object, or hold in check at 
the right measure the degree of desire. If, however, the 
Will allow the influence to enter by want of care, or allow 
the undue degree of desire to rise by consent, sin has be- 
gun. Thereby the feelings veer from their preference for 
the moral law, and another object is preferred. If after 
allowing the undue action of the prevolitional feeling, the 
Will proceed to execute its dictates, then the sin appears 
in overt act. 

We will now notice the logic of Edwards upon this 
subject. The Socinian, Dr. John Taylor, Ta y^onnec- 
denies the possibility of a created or neces- ness. 
sary holiness. "A necessary holiness (says he) is no 



892 THE POSITIVE AKGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

holiness." [Is no moral desert, he should have said.] 
" Adam could not be originally created in righteousness 
and true holiness, because he must choose to be right- 
eous before he could be righteous." 

To this statement of Taylor, Edwards replies thus: 
"If these things are so it will certainly follow, that 
the first choosing to be righteous is no righteous 
choice; there is no righteousness or holiness in it, 
because no choosing to be righteous goes before it. 
Edwards's -^ or ne pl am ty speaks of choosing to be right- 
repiy. eous, as what must go before righteousness; 

and that which follows the choice, being the effect of the 
choice, cannot be righteousness or holiness : for an effect 
is a thing necessary, and cannot prevent the influence or 
efficacy of its cause, and therefore is unavoidably depend- 
ent upon the cause, and he says a necessary holiness is 
no holiness" — P. 278. 

Here are two perfectly distinct arguments strung 
together, the first closing at the semicolon of the second 
sentence. 

1. Taylor says that righteous character is consequent 

upon free choice.* Then, replies Edwards, The choice 

itself cannot be righteous ; for you say that 

Choice produc- ° 7 J J 

nels r iotright- tne righteousness is consequent, and so can- 
eous. n0 £ ex i s t until after the choice; the choice, 

being previous to, must be outside the righteousness. 
Grant it, we answer ; but how does that show but that 
the free choice may produce — the thing that Taylor means 
— righteousness of character in the man, whether the 
choice be righteous or not? But we do not grant it. 
That righteousness of the man should be consequent upon 
the choice does not decide that the choice itself is not 
righteous. A man standing upon a straight line does not 
walk in the straight line until and just so far forth as he 
takes or has taken his first step in it ; but that does not 

* For, of course, it is personal righteousness which Taylor affirms 
that " Adam could n.ot originally be created in." 



Chap. 4.] CREATED MORAL DESERT IMPOSSIBLE. 393 

prove but that the first step is truly in the straight line. 
Consistently, according to Taylor, man was created 
right, and his first right act freely accorded with God's 
law, and was therefore righteous ; and his righteousness 
£)f personal character was the consequence of his right 
act. 

2. Taylor also says that holiness cannot be created 
or necessitated, but must be the product of a free 
Will. But, replies Edwards, in his second argument 
above, if holiness be a product or effect of free 
Will, it must be necessary ; for all effect is neces- 
sary. One of the most unmitigated quibbles on rec- 
ord! Taylor never thought of denying that holiness 
was intrinsically and so necessarily a quality of the free 
right act freely performed, as all essential quality is nec- 
essary t# its subject ; he only denied that the right act 
of which this holiness was the inherent essential and nec- 
essary quality is itself necessary to the agent; and, not 
being so, then [meritorious] holiness is not a volitional hoii- 

_. _ T ness not nec- 

necessary quality to the agent. It was not essary. 
created in him; he was not necessitated to acquire it. 
It was to Adam an unnecessitated righteousness, because 
a freely chosen righteousness. 

But it is in his work on Original Sin (Part II, chap, i, 
sect, i) that Edwards endeavors to demon- Edwards * s four 
strate at greatest length the reality of a created w^ 11 * 8 - 
righteousness, meaning thereby a created moral desert. 
These arguments we will consider. 

1. Argument. It accords with universal common sense 
that actions, in order to be good and right, must proceed 
from antecedent right principles or dispositions Good rin 
already existing in the soul. The truth is " not ^pies ^ 
that principles derive their goodness from acts - 
actions, but that actions derive their goodness from the 
principles whence they proceed." Hence there must be 
principles, dispositions which are good and right and 
virtuous before action; and therefore choice, volition, 



394 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part in, 

doing, is not necessary to the existence of virtue. 
There may therefore be a created righteousness, a neces- 
sitated virtue anterior to action. 

Answer. That there may be a created and necessitated 
righteousness before choice we admit ; but the question 
is, Can there be a created meritoriousness, good desert, 
or retributive righteousness before free choice ? If that 
created righteousness or virtuous constitution anterior 
to choice be such as to exclude all choice for wrong, but 
necessitates choosing according to the good principle, 
inclination, etc., previously existing, is there any imputa- 
ble ethical merit ? Or, if there be a created agent so 
1. But not totally evil, and so destitute of all possibil- 

necessitative . ,. , . ,. . . . . 

principles. ity oi good inclination, motive, or principle 
whatever, that choice according to them is out of the 
reach of the agent, then, though we admit that Ihe agent 
would in such case be evil, and his actions evil, would 
he be ethically responsible for the evil? To all these 
questions common sense must reply in the negative. It 
may, then, be true that the choice must be for the good 
object, and from, or sequent upon a good motive or 
principle, or interior correlation for a good principle, and 
yet no accountable righteousness precede the choice, but 
all accountability must follow choice. If there were no 
anterior bad principle within reach, from which or 
sequently upon which Adam could act, Adam would not 
be meritoriously righteous. If there had been no ante- 
rior good principle, motive, or reason within Adam's 
reach, from which or sequently upon which he could 
act, Adam would not be imputably wicked. We grant 
all that Edwards claims, then ; that there must be some 
anterior good or bad motivity within reach, in accord- 
ance with which the action, in order to be good or bad, 
must be put forth ; but that stands in no contradiction to 
the further truth that no merit or demerit accrues to the 
agent until the free volition has accorded with the ante- 
rior motivity, good or bad. 



Chap. 4.] CREATED MORAL DESERT IMPOSSIBLE. 395 

2. Argument. Passages are quoted from Hutche- 
son, sanctioned by Taylor, affirming that all actions 
morally good or evil flow from some good n „ a 

J & & 2. Good acts 

or evil affection, and that virtue or vice JJ ^ d a f ™m 
is either "some such affection or action con- tions - 
sequent upon it." But righteous affection, previous to 
all action, must be necessary righteousness, antecedent to 
choice. Moreover Taylor admits that love is the fulfill- 
ing of the law, and that this is that "goodness," or 
"principle of benevolence," which includes "all moral 
rectitude ;" which, in fact, is resolvable into this princi- 
ple. Consequently no volition anterior to this principle 
can have any moral rectitude. An involuntary, non- 
volitional, and therefore necessary holiness, therefore, 
precedes all choice. 

Answer. Love is, indeed, the fulfilling of the law, and 
all virtue is but a modification of love, as all material 
things are modifications of the same essential substance. 
But this love is not a mere inactive necessitated senti- 
ment. So long as it is such it is " moral rectitude," 
indeed ; but it is not moral desert. It is excellence, 
virtue ; but it is neither imputable nor rewardable. Im- 
putable love, fulfilling the law, is not merely love expe- 
rienced, but love voluntarily lived and exemplified in 
action. It is not merely love passive, but love active. 
It is love volitionally sanctioned, appropriated, and 
adopted as the controlling law of the energetic life, 
accepted as suffusing the active being. It requires 
therefore free volitional action before that love can 
attain the meritorious character requisite to 2 The ood 
a retributive probation. If that action is g*| ly m ^* 
necessarily accordant, the imputability is still the d good 
unattained. Or, on the other hand, if that affectlons - 
action is necessarily discordant ; if love in any of 
its forms of virtue cannot be in reach as a possible 
motive or antecedent principle of volition, there will be 
solely necessitated vicious action, but not responsible 



396 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

action. Necessitated love or hate, and, therefore, neces- 
sitated virtue or vice, may precede free action, but not 
accountable virtue or vice. 

3. Argument. It is affirmed by Dr. Taylor that it is the 
cause which is chargeable with the effect. But the same 
Dr. T. maintains that choice is the cause of righteous- 
3. An effectuated ness as an effect. But the doctrine that 

righteousness is ■■••«»>-• '■» -, 

a necessitated, choice eiiects righteousness stands m contra- 
diction to Dr. T.'s doctrine. that all moral rectitude is in 
the single principle of love, benevolence, or goodness. 

Answer. The cause is chargeable with its effect ; and 
the free causal agent is responsible for his act. The free 
choice is the antecedent of the chooser's accountable 
righteousness. The antecedent principle of benevolence, 
3.Notinaitem- of right, or of reason, all being modifications 
uated. of the principle of love, are simply motivities 

of volition, not single securatives of it to any one choice. 
The free choice according to the righteous motivity pro- 
duces an imputable righteousness in the agent. 



CHAPTEE V. 

THE MAXIM OF RESPONSIBILITY. 

It is sometimes said that our doctrine of Will funda- 
opposite maxims mentally decides our theology, or rather our 
ofResponsibiiity. theodice. B ut m trnt h there is an under- 
lying principle by which our doctrine of the Will itself is 
likely to be shaped and decided, namely, our fundamental 
Maxim of Obligation or Responsibility. If power to act 
must underlie and be commensurate with obligation to 
act, then there must be exemption from necessity to obey 
motive, however strongest, counter to obligation. But 
if our maxim be that no matter how we come by voli- 



Chap. 5.] THE MAXIM OF RESPONSIBILITY. 397 

tion, disposition, state, nature, or what its cause, we are 
in any case responsible for Us intrinsic good or evil, then 
freedom or non-freedom is morally an unimportant ques- 
tion. This maxim we now consider. 

"A man is not to blame for what he cannot help," is 
the universal language of the moral sense and the com- 
mon sense. If an act be positively done, without the 
power of not-doing, or not done for want of 
power of doing, there can be no guilt. For 
neither performance of what could not be avoided, nor 
for non-performance of what could not be done, can there 
be obligation, responsibility, guilt, blame, or just punish- 
ment. The wrong would be in the requirement, not in 
the non-compliance. 

A command requiring an act, requires the exertion of 
an existing power ; and if the power does No p?wer no 
not exist, then there is the requirement for re< *uirement. 
the exertion of a non-existence or nothing. To require 
the exertion of a nothing, is to require nothing ; that is, 
the requirement is no requirement. 

An act without power adequate to perform it is an 
event without a cause. To require such an act is to re- 
quire a causeless effect. No matter what causeless effect 
may be the agent or object of whom or ^quirabie. 
which the requirement is made, whether he or it be mind 
or matter, intelligent or unintelligent, living or lifeless, to 
require of it a result for which .there exists in it no ade- 
quate causality is to require a causeless effect. But to 
require a causeless effect is to require a nothing, and is 
therefore no requirement at all. 

For the non-performance of this non-requirement just 
penalty is impossible. Pain can indeed be inflicted for 
nothing. A being of infinite power may inflict all the 
suffering which a finite being is capable of enduring. He 
may inflict this pain in consequence of the imposition of 
a form of requirement which is not a requirement, and 
in consequence of the non-performance of an action which 



898 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

is no action. But such pain would be no just penalty, 
nor could the omnipotence of the author make it such. 
Such action or non-action is no basis for responsibility, 
for judicial sentence, or for a just retributive divine 
government. 

The axiom that adequate power must underlie obliga- 
Maxim includes tion is equally valid whether the required 
volition. act k e ex ternal or corporeal, or whether intel- 

lectual or volitional. It is equally true that an act for 
which there exists in the agent no adequate power is not 
morally requirable ; whether it be an unconscious effect 
of a lifeless cause, as the production of lightning from 
a solid cube of iron ; or an external voluntary corporeal 
act, as to turn a planet out of its course with my hand ; 
or an intellectual act, as to know the nature and number 
of the inhabitants of Saturn ; or volitional act, as to put 
forth the volitions necessary to call all those inhabitants 
by their true names. And for just this reason, namely, 
that all these requirements are alike requirement of a 
causeless effect, and therefore no requirement at all. 

We inaugurate, then, this, what we will call the axiom 

The formal OF FEEED0M ANr> RESPONSIBILITY, and hold it 

maxim. ag y^^ as anv ax iom of geometry. Power 
must underlie obligation. There can be no full moral 
obligation to an act, volitional or non-volitional, for 
which there is not in the required agent full and ade- 
quate power. Or otherwise, there can be no guilt or re- 
sponsibility for act or volition, for avoidance of which 
there is not complete and adequate power ; that is, for 
which there is not a power adequate to counter act or 
volition. If guilt, or responsibility, or obliffa- 

The inference. . *?. ' . * J ' & 

tion be a reality, then the power of counter 
choice is a reality. Responsibility, therefore, demon- 
strates free-will. 

The axiomatic character of these propositions is verified 
Axiomatic ver- by tne established tests of axioms. These tests 
ifications. are se ^i ev idence, necessity, and universality. 



Chap. 5.] THE MAXIM OF RESPONSIBILITY. 399 

These propositions are self-evident; asserting their own 
truth to the mind that truly understands them ; needing 
no proof, but merely sufficient elucidation to render them 
perfectly understood. They are characterized by neces- 
sity y not being able to be otherwise than true, not able 
to be conceived to be untrue, not possible but to be pro- 
nounced true. They are universal y ever and everywhere 
true ; and everywhere, and by all minds, assumed and 
acted upon as true. 

It is not, however, claimed that all minds conceive 
them as formal and general propositions. Axioms are 
mentally and unconsciously subsumed by all minds, when 
the objects and occasions to which thev be- Axioms sub- 

i t_-i £> i^ j • j ~n sumed,though 

long arise ; while lew uncultivated minds form unexpressed. 
them into verbal propositions, and embrace them in that 
form. Dr. M'Cosh, in his able work on the Intuitions, has 
illustrated, with great clearness and conclusiveness, the 
point, that while axiomatic propositions in their general 
and abstract form are educed late in the history of 
thought by the philosopher, they are occultly assumed 
and acted upon, whenever the particular occasion arises, 
by the rudest mind. 

The law of the uniformity of nature's laws is still un- 
der philosophic discussion by the philosopher ; but from 
time immemorial every boy has unhesitatingly assumed 
that the sun will rise to-morrow. The law that every 
event and finite object must, have a cause is susceptible of 
still further elucidation by the schools ; but every savage, 
though he never heard it enounced, and is unable to 
think it separately, assumes it in every case demanding 
it. That the whole is the sum total of all its parts is a:^ - 
sumed as a regulative principle of both judgment and 
action by those who have never isolated it in thought. 
That a straight line is the shortest distance between two 
points will strike a peasant as a new idea, although 
he has acted upon it ever since he could act intelligently. 
Nay, even the ass, who walks straight to the haystack, 



400 THE POSITIVE AEGUMEKT STATED. [Part III, 

assumes its truth as a regulative principle, though he is 
utterly unable to think it as a distinct proposition. It 
requires the highest metaphysics to analyze the latent 
and elementary, yet sure and valid, assumptions upon 
which the simplest intellects act. Without ascending 
into the principles of its own action, the common mind 
will instinctively observe the regulative laws for its own 
legitimate process. And thus the uneducated man may 
Subsumed by scarce understand the proposition power must 
learned. underlie responsibility, and yet rare indeed will 
be the man who does not understand the proposition, or 
feel any hesitation, in the suitable case, in using it, " I 
am not to blame for what I cannot and never could help." 
Few intelligent though unschooled men would fail to in- 
dorse the proposition, " Neither any body nor any 
thing can be under obligation to produce an effect with- 
out a cause." And whether it were an external act or 
an internal choice, we doubt if any man, not preoccupied 
with a theory or prepossessed by education, would hesitate 
to affirm, " No body can be under obligation to perform 
an act, or feel an inclination, or put forth a volition, for 
which he has not and never had the adequate power." 
This, therefore, is an axiomatic principle. It appears 
true by its own clear self -evidence ; it insures assent by 
its own necessity ; it is assumed in the proper individual 
instances by every man, and is, therefore, authenticated 
with the seal of infallible catholicity. 

Our axiom above laid down needs but one elucidation. 
Where a free-agent willfully deprives himself of power to 
a given volition or act he does not thereby absolve him- 
self from all obligation to that act* In this case, how- 
ever, the wrong of all his actions arising from that self- 
deprivation may, perhaps, be viewed as so much aggra- 
vation of the guilt of his self-depriving act. Thereby the 
complete universality of our axiom remains, nor is it neces- 
sary formally to make the exception of self-superinduction. 
*Seep. 328. 



Chap. 5.] THE MAXIM OF RESPONSIBILITY. 401 

A debtor may not willfully fling his money into the sea 
and then claim exemption from guilt for non- gelf . superin . 
payment. A servant may not cut off his hands ductlon - 
and then hold himself innocent for not laboring. A man 
may not destroy his own moral faculties by disuse, by 
abuse, by willful forfeiture, and then make their non-ex- 
istence a bar to responsibility. Or if a man rejects or 
forfeits means and aids by which he might possess full 
power and capacity for doing right, or attaining to the 
perfect standard of the moral law, he can never claim ex- 
emption from responsibility. If a probationary being, 
who owes a measure of service to God, so abdicates his 
powers as to be unable to fulfill his task, then, as his al- 
ternative, he must do what he can do ; meet the just 
penalty of his voluntary omission — voluntary because 
secured and chosen by his own free act. 

When it is said that the divine Law of obligation can- 
not require an impossible act, it is assumed Law implies 
that the Law presupposes the essential and ities. 
eternal natures of things to be as they are. Should a pure 
angel once sin, the guilt of that sin, like the historical 
fact of its commission, must intrinsically inhere to its be- 
ing as long as its personality lasts. It might then be 
said, in a very metaphysical way, that the law neverthe- 
less forever constantly requires that angel to be innocent, 
however impossible it be. Yet it could not, if the law 
presupposes the essential nature of things, be said that it 
requires such angel to cause that the past fact be never 
done, which is absurd and out of the question. No more 
can it be said that the Law requires the angel to make 
itself innocent, for that includes the same absurdity. 
Both would be requirements of nothing, and so no re- 
quirements at all. What should be said is, that the an- 
gel having once sinned, the law, prescribing no impossi- 
bilities, holds the being permanently and unchangeably 
guilty. So if an angel, primordially endowed with the 
power of drawing a line of perfect rectitude through 

26 



402 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

eternity, abdicates that power and diverges far below 
the straight line, the law holds it a settled point that the 
entire divergency is a fixed guilt, imputable on account 
of the original power of eternal rectitude. There is, then, 
an obligation to eternal rectitude because the power for 
eternal rectitude is imparted, and there is responsibility 
for the eternal deflection because of the primordial power 
of avoiding it. The Law, then, does not hold itself as 
requiring the impossible or as condemning for the inevi- 
table. Power still underlies obligation. The eternal 
rectitude is held as a unit for which there was 
power. So that under this explanation we 
affirm that there is no proper exception to the maxim 
that power for right underlies obligation for right and 
responsibility for wrong. 



■«*»» 



CHAPTER YI. 

NECESSITARIAN COUNTER MAXIM OF RESPONSI- 
BILITY CONSIDERED. 

To the claim that free causation is necessary to re- 
sponsibility/^ an evil volitional act, Edwards opposes a 
broad proposition which he esteems as thereto a contradict- 
Opposing or 7 position. The viciousness of an act of Will 
SsponsiSfi- lies not in its cause but in its own intrinsic na- 
ture. We are not to look at the volitional cause, 
so as to ask whether or not it is free, but to concentrate our 
view upon the act alone ; and that, whatever be the na- 
ture of the cause, free or not,* is by its own nature good 

* "How the disposition got there is not the question which the moral 
sense of man when he is tmvitiated by a taste for speculation, takes any 
concern in. It is enough for the moral sense that the disposition is 
there. . . . Give to its view a wrong act originating in a wrong intention, 
and it asks no more to make up its estimate of the criminality of what 
has been offered to its notice." — Chalmers on Bomans, sect. 24. 



Chap. 6.] COUNTER MAXIM OF RESPONSIBILITY. 403 

or bad. To Arminians, on the contrary, he attributes the 
doctrine that the viciousness of " the dispositions or acts of 
the Will consists not in the nature of these dispositions 
or acts, but wholly in the origin or cause of them." 

In disproof of this so-called Arminian maxim, Edwards 
tries his hand at a second logical infinite series. gecond In 
If, argues he, the badness be not in the act, but finite series - 
in its cause, then, for the same reason, it is not in its cause 
but in the cause of its cause, and for the same reason in 
the next anterior cause ; and so back in endless retrogres- 
sion, it is ever to be chased but never overtaken.* 
Whence he infers that the causation, whether alternative 
or inalternative, has nothing to do with the ethic of the 
act. To this we reply, 

I. Edwards wholly mistakes the i&sue between himself 
and the freedomist. The question is not, EdW ards mistakes 
In what consists "the essence of the virtue theissue - 
and vice* of dispositions of the heart and acts of the 
Will ?" Nor has any Arminian ever said that the " vice 
of a vicious act of Will lies not in the nature of the act, 
but in the cause." The viciousness of the act of Will 
does lie in itself and nowhere else. The moral quality 
of the act does lie in its nature. A bad act is intrinsic- 
ally bad. Wickedness is in itself wicked. Herein both 
sides agree. The question in fact concerns not the 
viciousness of the act, but the responsibility for the 
act. 

To ask in what consists the evil of an act is one ques- 
tion; to ask what is the ground of respons- EviiandRespora- 

.-r.-r.. .i A . jT ., . ^, ibiUty two ques- 

ibility in the agent for the evil is another turns. 
question. It does not certainly follow that because an 
act is intrinsically evil or wrong, the author of the act is 
responsible or blameworthy. That evil is the nature or 
* But why cannot the evil lie in its cause and stop there ? The en- 
lightenment of the moon lies not in itself, but in the sun ; is the sun 
therefore not self-luminous, but enlightened by some previous source ? 
A minor's wealth lies not in himself but in his father ; does it then run 
up through his whole pedigree ? 



404 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

quality of the act itself; although the nature of every act 
is modified by the nature of the agent. But when it is 
the responsibility of the agent for his act which is con- 
cerned, to say that the nature or causal character of the 
agent does not come under view is a contradiction. 
Wherever the evil lies, the merit or demerit, the respons- 
ibility, self-evidently does lie in the cause, that is, the 
intentional agent. 

II. Edwards fabricates for Arminians a very absurd 
maxim, giving it a very absurd form, and that apparently 
for a purpose ; namely, in order to make it a basis for his 
reductio adabsurdum in the form of his infinite series. That 
" the vice of a vicious act lies not in the nature of the act," 
is to say (so far as it has any sense or meaning) that the 
essential quality of U thing does not inhere to the thing. 
What freedomists say is this : that an act cannot be 
morally vicious unless the actor be a free moral agent. 
In order that a certain property should be in the effect, 
certain property or properties must be in the cause. 
Which is but saying that the quality of the effect is mod- 
ified by the causality; that is, that the effect is produced 
by the cause. 

Certainly no Edwardean can reject our maxim, or rather 
axiom, that a responsible viciousness in the act requires a 
moral agency in the actor. Then Edwards himself held 
or rejected just as truly as we the maxim that "the 
vice of a vicious act of Will lies not in the nature of the 
act, but in the cause." Edwards believed just as truly as 
we, that none but a moral agent could commit a moral 
offense. Where, then, lies our variance? Simply in 
this, that we hold an element of freedom in that moral 
agent, as requisite to his moral agency, which he denies. 
He believed that none but an inalternative or necessitated 
moral agent could commit a guilty deed ; we believe that 
none but a non-necessitated or free moral agent can incur 
such guilt. 

III. It being settled that the guilt for the act lies in 



Chap. 6.] COUNTER MAXIM OF RESPONSIBILITY. 405 

the cause, we affirm that the evil or wickedness of the 
act lies in the act. The moral evil of an act consists in 
this : that it is a disconformity to or transgres- 
sion of the Law of God. As this disconformity 
or transgressoriness lies in the act, so the evil, the 
viciousness, lies in the act. That viciousness does not, as 
Edwards says, arise from its "odiousness," but its odious- 
ness arises from its viciousness ; that is, from its variance 
from right and law, whereby it is most justly dreaded, 
avoided, and abhorred by all that is right and holy. 

And now the question comes, What are the conditions 
by which the agent becomes responsible for The true 
the evil act? Edwards would say that he question. 
must be a rational moral being ; that he must have been 
voluntary in the act, and have been free from external 
coaction; in all which answers, contradicting 
his own maxim, he admits that the grounds of 
the responsibility lie in the nature of the cause, namely ', 
the agent. So far we agree, and now comes the differ- 
ence. The responsibility accrues, we say, to the agent 
from, 1, the fact that the act is formally evil; 2, the fact 
that his intention was accordantly evil; 3, the fact that 
the act is performed with full volitional power of non- 
performance. 

IV. But the real import of Edwards's unshapely prop- 
ositions is this : JVo matter what the causation EdwardS 'g re ai 
that puts the volition in the mind, not only maxlm - 
its intrinsic badness, but the consequent guilt of the 
agent, is all the same. No matter how it got there, 
whether by freedom or necessity, by chance, by fate, by 
birth* by creation, or by divine implantation, the respons- 
ibility is unaffected. Now besides his infinite series, 
which we trust we have properly demolished, he adduces 
no argument, and his proposition stands unsustained. 

If this necessitarian maxim be true, we submit to the 
reader whether the following inferences do 

. ° Consequences. 

not logically result : 



406 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. L^art III, 

1. It would be perfectly just for God to create an in- 
dividual perfectly and necessarily bad, hold him respons- 
ible for that badness, and consign him therefor to an 
endless hell. 

2. It would be perfectly just for God to create a race 
or a universe perfectly bad, and the next moment con- 
sign that race or universe to an endless hell for being 
what he created. 

3. The doctrine of absolute reprobation is right. God 
may justly bring into existence a depraved race, pre- 
damned before it is born and ready for hell. And should 
he from that number arbitrarily and hap-hazard select a 
few from the whole and omnipotently transform them 
into heirs of glory, it would be great mercy to them and 
no injustice to the rest. 

4. The doctrine of infant damnation is just and right. 
God may bring a race into existence totally depraved 
and necessitated to evil, may give them a longer or 
shorter existence in evil, and as justly send them to hell 
three days old as thirty years. 

5. All arguments in proof of divine rectitude or benevo- 
lence would be nugatory. Theists have studied the 
works and ways of God's providence to answer the 
cavil of skeptics, drawn from the sin and misery in the 
world, and demonstrate the righteousness of God. Why 
No moral attri- so ? Were God to create a universe of as 

butesofGod. a e p rav ed beings as Omnipotence itself could 
furnish, and fill the universal space with the intens- 
est hell to punish their wickedness, it would be all 
just and right. Nothing unjust, unrighteous, or incon- 
sistent with benevolence would be done. It would still 
be a perfectly just, divine government. And for it the 
brief theodice would be, " No matter how these beings, 
this universe, became possessed of their wickedness, it is 
responsible and guilty ; and it is right that the immensity 
should be a hell to punish them." 

The man into whose moral sense the above maxim 



Chap. 6.] COUNTER MAXIM OF RESPONSIBILITY. 407 

and its logical consequences easily fit is welcome to be- 
lieve in the doctrines of necessity. Our calm and firm 
belief is, that as the universal common sense of mankind 
comes to a clear perception of the nature of these propo- 
sitions and their connections, the whole will be repudi- 
ated and consigned to a perdition as final as that to 
which with such facility they can consign the creatures 
of God. 

V. Finally, Edwards flatly contradicts his own sense 
of his own maxim, that the viciousness of an Contra dicted 
act "consists not in the origin or cause." He l) y himself - 
does himself affirm, in words as clear as can be articu- 
lated, that the viciousness does depend upon the origin, 
the cause, and the causation. It consists in this: U A 
person's being or doing wrong, with his own will and 
pleasure; containing these two things: 1. His doing 
wrong when he does as he pleases. 2. Sis pleasures being 
wrong. Or, in other words, perhaps more intelligibly 
expressing their notion, a person having his heart wrong, 
and doing wrong from his heart" — P. 299. 

Here are origins, causes, and causations plentifully 
marshaled as the things in which the viciousness con- 
sists. There must be " a person," and surely a " person" 
is a cause. There must be the " doing wrong ;" and that 
is a mode of causation. There must be " will and pleas- 
ure;" "pleasure being wrong," "heart wrong," and 
these are so many origins. There must be " doing as 
he pleases," " doing wrong from his heart ;" and these 
again are modes of causation. And the requirement of. 
the least of them all incurs the full force of Edwards's 
infinite series. If in any one or all these origins, causa- 
tions, and modes of causation, the viciousness lies, then 
it lies not in these causes, etc., but in the causes of these 
causes ; and so on ad infinitum. 



408 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 



CHAPTEE YII. 

EDWARDS'S DIRECT INTUITIONAL PROOF OF NECES- 
SITATED RESPONSIBILITY. 

Edwards next (sect. 4, part iv) adduces his direct 
argument that responsibility for necessitated volition " is 
agreeable to common sense and the natural notions of 
mankind." 

He first states, in words already quoted, (p. 407,) 
vulgar notion " what the vulgar notion of blameworthi- 
thiness." ness is." It is "a person's having his heart 
wrong and doing wrong from the heart ;" a notion, by 
the way, which, 1. Contradicts his assertion that the 
origin or source of the volition has nothing to do with 
blameworthiness ; and, 2. Would render very difficult any 
explanation of the sin of the first angels and of our first 
parents. But the " vulgar notion " being thus, men act 
upon it without mounting into speculations as to the 
freedom or non-freedom of the Will. " And that is the 
end of the matter." 

I. Not quite the " end of the matter." We indeed 
grant that in these conditions common sense does con- 
cede the responsibility of acts of Will — but not of 
wm-but not necessitated Will !* Edwards here first 
wni. professedly proves necessitation upon Will, 

and then takes the intuitive human assumption that Will 
is responsible, (an assumption made under tacit sub- 
sumption that Will is what it intrinsically is — -free,) in 
proof that Will, loaded with necessity, is responsible. 
Herein the intuition subsuming that Will is free is Armin- 
ian ; and Edwards dexterously claps this Arminian sub- 
sumption under his necessitarian overlay ; so that we 
have it, a necessitated volition is responsible because 
intuitively a non-necessitated volition is. 
* See p. 418. 



Chap. 7.] NECESSITATED RESPONSIBILITY. 409 

IL A lurking consciousness of his sophism seems to 
have disturbed Edwards's mind ; and he thus 

* . Edwards's 

forecloses the common sense of mankind from foreclosure 

of common 

any voice upon the subject : sense - 

" The common people do not ascend up in their reflec- 
tions and abstractions to the metaphysical sources, rela- 
tions, and dependencies of things, in order to form their 
notions of faultiness or blameworthiness. They do not 
wait till they have decided by their refinings what first 
determines the Will ; whether it be determined by some- 
thing extrinsic or intrinsic ; whether volition determines 
volition, or whether the understanding determines the 
Will ; whether there be any such thing as metaphysicians 
mean by contingence, (if they have any meaning;) 
whether there be a sort of a strange, unaccountable 
sovereignty in the Will, in the exercise of which, by its 
own sovereign acts, it brings to pass all its own sover- 
eign acts. They do not take any part of their notion 
of fault or blame from the resolution of any such 
questions." — P. 300. 

We reply, first, this is a fair surrender of any claim 
that the common sense affirms necessitation of Will. 
The common sense, according to Edwards, Surrender of 
does not go up so far as that question. JVe~ its testimon y- 
cessity of Will is then no doctrine of common sense. 
But we claim that common sense does assume, as else- 
where explained, the freedom of the Will. The com- 
mon mind is perpetually assuming axioms in the particu- 
lar instances,* of which it never separately thinks. It 
cannot isolate them in thought, nor frame them into 
language ; but it instinctively and rightly assumes them 
as latent regulatives of its spontaneous and instanta- 
neous natural judgments. " Common people," Edwards 
adds, u do suppose that it is the person's own act and 
deed." And, we add, they do subsume in Popular ^ews 
their morally blaming that there was power offreechoice - 
* See p. 399, 



410 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part in, 

of choice to do otherwise; not because they distinctly 
state that thought to themselves, but because it is nat- 
urally seen a constituent of the notion of a free blame- 
able act. When a proposition comes announcing that 
the choice was overlaid with a causative necessitation, 
securing its putting forth, and excluding from the agent 
in the case all adequate power for any other choice 
instead, a new, an unexpected, a foreign, and a very 
doubtful notion is introduced. It is felt that the judg- 
ment attributing blame was pronounced without inclu- 
sion of any such notion. It requires no profounder met- 
The common aphysics for a man of common sense to per- 
pe?ceive as ceive that necessitation destroys the responsi- 

difficult dis- , . J r 

tinctions. bility oi the volitional act than it does to 
perceive that compulsion destroys the responsibility 
of corporeal motion. Men decide the last without 
instruction from moral philosophers, and without any 
abstruse train of reasoning, by immediate moral intui- 
tion. Just as easily can they see with a glance of the 
moral instinct, that to fasten a man's volitions by neces- 
sitative causation, and then require a contrary volition 
from him, makes not a sinner of the man, but of the 
requirer. 

III. Edwards adds, " The common people, in their 
notion of a faulty or praiseworthy deed or work done by 
any one, do suppose that he does it in the exercise 
of liberty. But then their notion of liberty is only a 
person's having opportunity of doing as he pleases. 
They have no notion of liberty consisting in the Will's 
first acting, and so causing its own acts," etc. Un- 
doubtedly " the common people " have no such " notion " 
of "liberty" as Edwards's rigmarole attributes to 
"Arminians;" but we apprehend that they would 
require the liberty or power to be located precisely in 
judges that the faculty, organ, or part of the agent by 
ibie part " which the required act is to be performed, and 
the free. that the power be for just the act required. 



Chap. 7.] NECESSITATED RESPONSIBILITY. 411 

If the act required is in the foot, " the common people " 
will require both liberty (that is, exemption from restric- 
tion) and power in the foot. If by the body, the liberty 
and the power will be required by "the common 
people " to exist in the body, and not in something else. 
If by the intellect, then in the intellect. If by the Will, 
then in the Will. If something is to be externally done, 
then the external must be at full liberty to perform. 
But when an obligation not to do, but to will, is laid 
upon the Will, common people will require something 
different from merely " the liberty " or " opportunity of 
doing;" even "of doing as he pleases." It will call 
for liberty and power in the Will ; and for just the 
power, and just the amount and direction of the 
power and freedom adequate for the volition required. 
Even "common people" can see that obligation to act is 
an obligation to exert an existing power ; and that the 
obligation to exert a power that does not exist, whether 
upon the body, intellect, or Will, is an obligation to 
nothing, and is no obligation at all. 

IV. Edwards's next argument is this : If " moral ne- 
cessity" — that is, necessitation of Will to Does >. moral 
particular volition — excuses, then approxima- ?use, S even'pr?" 
tion to such perfect necessitation proportion- portlonatey - 
ately excuses. His proof is this : For in " natural," that 
is, corporeal, necessitation such proportion exists ; name- 
ly, the nearer a perfect corporeal necessitation, the nearer 
a perfect excuse; and the same rule must, by logical 
consequence, hold of force upon the Will. But, says 
Edwards, " the reverse of this is true;" that is, the degree 
of excuse for volitional or motive force is, in fact, not pro- 
portioned to the nearness to necessitation. And then he 
proceeds to prove this non-existence of voli- Edwards twice 

. . . . changes ques- 

tional excuse proportioned to the necessitation tion. 

in a decidedly adroit way; namely, by two successive 

changes of the question. 

1. In place of necessitation upon the Will he substi- 



412 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part HI, 

« ^ ... x h tutes "propensity" and "inclination" in the 

Substitutes: 1. r r j 

fo?neces^?a- volitional agent ; and the question then would 
tion on will. h ecome this : "Would the excusableness of the 
volition be in proportion to the strength of the evil " in- 
clination ?" which is quite a new question. 2. In place of 
2 character of the Will or volition, whose excusableness is the 
spoSiity r of matter of question, he substitutes the moral 
character of the man or agent himself; and 
then the question, under the double slide, is this: Is a 
man excusable or commendable in proportion to the 
strength of his bad " inclinations ?" And so finally it re- 
solves into about this : Is a man the better the worse his 
propensities are? And of course to such a question 
Edwards obtains the ready negative. But unluckily it 
is not the question under discussion. 

The question is not as to the view we take of the gen- 
eral moral character of the man as possessed of " inclina- 
tions ;" nor as to the effect of his " inclinations " upon 
his volitions ; but the question is, What effect 
should the different increases of motive force 
and of approaches to necessitation produce upon the de- 
gree of responsibility for a volition ? To which we reply, 
as we elsewhere more fully show,* that the power of 
temptation does often excuse proportionately to its 
strength, as much as the force of coaction on the external 
act. When an agent proves that there never existed in 
his created nature a ground of possibility that the tempt- 
ing motive should be volitionally resisted, he is blame- 
less. Approximations to this, not self-superinduced, do 
proportionately excuse. So that Edwards's "reverse" 
must be absolutely reversed. The same law of excusa- 
bleness, graduated by the degree of force, applies equally 
to motive force on Will, and coactive force on body. 

V. Finally, Edwards brings the trueness of his dis- 
Exampieof tinction between "natural and moral ability" 
two cases. ^ t ^ e j- es t f a f u rj example. Suppose a prince 

*Seep. 331. 



Chap. 7.] NECESSITATED RESPONSIBILITY. 413 

has two rebels in separate prisons, to each of whom he 
offers pardon and restoration to favor, npon condition 
that he will come forward and make a full and voluntary 
submission. The former would accept the pardon, but 
bars and chains, alas! preclude; and this is a case of 
physical necessitation or " natural inability" The lat- 
ter has the same offer ; but so powerfully do pride and 
hatred bar his heart, and his heart bind his Will, that by 
moral necessity he refuses. Now, Edwards argues, every 
one can see that the two cases are very different ; that 
the former case excuses, while the latter does not ; that 
this latter necessitation, though producing what is called 
a "moral inability" creates no real u inability /" since 
the latter rebel can submit "if he pleases," "though the 
vile temper of his heart is so fixed and rooted that it is 
impossible that it should please him" 

We can indeed readily see the difference. The former 
of the two is a case of material, physical, or corporeal 
inability ; but no more natural than a natural causative 
force upon the natural faculty of the Will would be. As 
being a force, precluding all adequate power for the re- 
quired action, there is no responsibility. Were we allowed 
to conceive, however, that the free Will of the rebel was 
as opposed to the submission as the bars and chains were, 
those material obstacles would no longer be an excuse ; 
his soul would be as responsible as if the body were free. 
This would be, indeed, a third case, combining the other 
two into one, but quite as illustrative as either. 

In the latter case we will make two suppositions : 

It may have been a case of self-superinduced neces- 
sity; or 

It may have been a case of created, born, or objective 
and changeless necessity. 

1. Supposing the man by nature volitionally free, he 
may have voluntarily and freely indulged, cultivated, and 
enlarged his malevolent feelings, and so have reduced, 



414 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

enfeebled, and destroyed his better feelings, that when 
the offer of pardon came he was at the moment so filled 
with excitement that all favorable motive was driven 
from his attention or thought ; the alternative conditions 
of freedom did not exist, and he was volitionally unfree. 
Yet as he has freely superinduced this one-sided bondage 
and true inability upon himself, he cannot excuse this 
crime by previous crime. Nay, the man is responsible 
and guilty for his self-superinduced bad passions, with 
all their enormity and overwhelming power and con- 
sequences. 

2. Suppose, however, this slave of passion to have been 
enslaved from the first moment of his existence. Sup- 
pose, as necessitarianism always claims, that he received 
at the first instant a completely necessitated being, and 
state, and nature ; suppose that, through every instant of 
his existence, Tiis being, and state, and nature, and action 
have all been necessitated, so that his whole historic 
being, and state, and action, volitional and consequently 
corporeal, have been run in the absolute mould of fixing 
causation down to the present instant ; then we say that 
he can be no more responsible or guilty than a solid cube 
of granite, centrally imbedded in a primary stratum, can 
be responsible for there lying in its adamantine hardness 
and fixedness through untold millions of geologic ages. 

To Kant's formula, "I ought, therefore I can," (by 
which he asserted that power ever underlies obligation,) 
Miiiier's reply Miiller furnishes this supposed complete an- 
to Kant. SW er : " If to such an one it be said in the 
name of the practical reason, ' thou oughtest to be holy 
in each moment of thy life ; therefore henceforth, from 
Ought be now this very moment, thou canst be so,' he would 

holy,butc£m- . ,—,* _ ■_ . , _ _ _ _ 

not. say, 'Truly I ought to be able, but I can- 

not.' " 

In the solution of this problem, perhaps we may, from 
the principles we have laid down, find satisfaction under 



Chap. 8.] BELIEF AND WILL. 415 

the three following suppositions : 1. The agent i. superinduc- 

, , ,. jf ,-.,,. n* . • gon of the 

may have, by his own free adoption of his ma- "cannot." 
bility, superinduced it upon his own being. The case, 
then, is clear; by our expositions, made in the proper 
place, his responsibility is rationally unquestionable. 
2. He may have been overlaid with super- 2. True riecefeita. 

, . . , •» 1 /» -i • t5on 1 tne " ought" 

imposed necessitation without fault of his the ideal. 
own. His ought, then, is ideal ; it involves neither obli- 
gation nor responsibility. 3. Nevertheless he may be 
placed probationarily under the law of that 3 The « oughr 
lofty ideal ought with a view to his restora- t r C dof C uit s ima?e 
tion to its level, or a penalty for free, willful perfection - 
non-restoration. The ideal ought would then possess a 
critical, but not a retributive power. There may then 
be interposed by the divine Rector an intermediate law 
within the power of the agent; this intermediate law 
may serve as a standard of present acceptance, and as 
an upward sliding scale to the perfect law; the perfect 
law stands as the gauge of the present irresponsible 
defectus, and as the standard of final elevation or meas- 
ure of final condemnation. Herein it will appear, in 
opposition to Miiller's argument, that there is NoougntW it n - 
no retributive ought for which there is not outthecan - 
the correspondent can. 



-**♦*•»- 



CHAPTEE YIIL 

RESPONSIBILITY OF BELIEF DEMONSTRATES FREE- 
DOM OF WILL. 

Ik his Bridgewater Treatise Dr. Chalmers, one of the 
most stringent necessitarians of our times, professedly 
solves the problem of the responsibility of a Responsibility 
man for his belief. The denial of that responsi- of beUef - 
bility confessedly derives " all its plausibility from the 



416 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part HI, 

imagination, that the belief is in no vxty dependent upon 
the Will. It is not morally incumbent upon man to see 
an object which is placed beyond the sphere of his vis- 
ion, nor can either a rightful condemnation or a rightful 
vengeance be laid upon him because he has not per- 
ceived it. It must be within range of his seeing, and then 
the only question which needs to be resolved is, what the 
Resolved by Will has to do with the seeing of it. Now to 

"wiii." see ^ s not p r0 p er i v an action of the Will, but to 
look is altogether so ; and it is the dependence of this 
looking faculty on the Will which makes man responsible 
for what he sees or what he does not see, in reference to 
all those objects of sight that are placed within the ter- 
ritory of sensible vision." — P. 253. 

To relieve us from the irresponsibility of belief arising 
from the intrinsic necessity of belief apart from all voli- 
tion, Dr. Chalmers here calls in the aid of Will, 
if necessity We institute then the grave inquiry, If a ne- 

iief,wny not cessitated intellect cannot be guilty for its 

excuse voli* 

tion? necessitated beliefs, how is it that a necessi- 

tated Will is guilty for its necessitated volitions ? As 
the evidence seals the belief, so the motive seals the 
choice, As the emotive nature has no power of counter 
emotion, so the volitive nature has no power of counter 
volition. If, then, one common necessity closes up all 
alike, why does not one common irresponsibility excuse 
all alike ? 

A disbeliever in the responsibility of belief, aware of 
Reply of dis- n * s necessitarianism, might thus have refuted 

believer. jy v q^ upon his own ground. "The ground 
for my rejection of responsibility for belief is the ac- 
knowledged necessitated nature of belief. Show me that 
it is not necessitated and I am answered. But to show 
me that it is controlled by a Will equally necessitated, is 
no answer. If a necessitated faculty or operation can be 
responsible, then no solution of the responsibility of be- 
lief can be needed ; if a necessitated faculty or operation 



Chap. 8.] BELIEF AND WILL. 417 

cannot be responsible, then neither Will nor volition can 
be responsible. You must revolve through the whole 
circle of mental faculties and find necessity everywhere 
and responsibility nowhere." 

According to Dr. Chalmers, belief without evidence is 
not a possible object of requirement, just because it is 
not in nature a possible performance. Divine Justice 
could not require a belief for which there was no power 
in the soul, any more than it could require a long and 
lofty strain of celestial music from the solid heart of the 
insensate rock. But then comes the question, If Justice 
cannot demand a belief for which there is, in 

7 If non-belief 

the instance, no adequate power m the intellect, Je^ 1 ^" 
how can it demand a volition for which there whTnotnon. 
is, in the instance, no power in the Will ? If ^{hout mo- 
the counter evidence presented or the want of 
affirmative evidence renders it impossible and takes 
away the power to believe, certainly the presence of a 
counter motive or the absence of an affirmative renders 
impossible, and takes away the power to Will. Both 
may with equal propriety be called a moral inability. 
Of both may it be said with equal sense, or equal sophism, 
they are " not in strict propriety of speech, 5 ' after all, to 
be called an a inability." But whatever the vocable by 
which they are designated, they are equally a non-exist- 
ence of power to the thing required ; they are in both 
cases a no-power, and both alike exclude the possibility 
of obligation or command under a righteous divine gov- 
ernment. 

To this whole argument Chalmers would have replied, 
with Edwards, that nevertheless it is an ulti- volition ax- 

. . „ » . iomatically 

mate and axiomatic intuition of the moral sense, responsible? 
that obligation is affixed to Will and not to belief. The 
primary belief of the whole race findsblamein the wrong 
volition, however the volition be acquired, and finds it 
nowhere else. To this we again* furnish the reply, and 

* See p. 408. 
27 



418 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

Yes, but not we call attention to it as perfectly conclusive, 
volitions? that the ultimate intuitions of the universal 
human soul do find blame and obligation primarily in 
the volition alone, but never in a necessitated Will 
or volition. A Will, as the intuitions of men behold it, 
unnecessitated to one way but free to alterieties, they 
do hold to be responsible; a Will, as necessitarianism 
overlays it with inevitable limitation to the forbidden act, 
they hold to be irresponsible. Men naturally hold Will 
responsible because they naturally see it free. They see 
its freedom as they see the other qualities which go to make 
the idea of Will, not with a power of analytically isolating 
this or any other one quality from the rest, but as blended 
and fused into the total unit. Nor will the assumption 
that the " vulgar " mind does not enter so deeply into the 
matter as to be competent to take cognizance of necessi- 
tation laid upon Will, for one moment avail. The " vul- 
so to the gar " mind — certainly the mind with which 

comrcon -^ *~\ • • -i • 

mind. Dr. U. is reasoning — does cognize necessity 

when superimposed upon belief, and demands of the 
philosopher to explain how it can be responsible. If, 
then, the common sense can see that a necessitation 
estops the responsibility of belief, it can also see that the 
same necessitation estops the responsibility of volition. 

The necessitarian adherents of Edwards and Chalmers 
Newdennition ex P ress a permanent inability to understand 

of freedom. what we mean by f ree( }om of the Will. We 

may at this point reply, it is just that basis of responsi- 
bility, whatever it is, which exists in Will, but not in in- 
tellect. 

In the matter of Regeneration we are told by necessi- 
tarian divines that the agent is the Holy Spirit, and that 
his operation therein in securing the consent of the Will 
is always effectual and irresistible. Yet we are told by 
their great standard divine, John Owen, that the Holy 
Spirit herein works upon our minds " according to their 



Chap. 8.] BELIEF AND WILL. 419 

natures and natural operations." That is, the Regeneration 
Holy Spirit secures the consent of the Will, in iy wrought. 
the natural and normal way, by presenting the necessita- 
tive strongest motive. This is the old mechanical freedom 
to, without freedom from. So Dr. Hodge (Essays and Re- 
views, p. 11) quotes Stapfer as saying that the Holy Spirit 
"so clearly carries truth into our minds, that they are una- 
ble not to assent, and presents so great motives to our Will 
that it is unable not to consent" * On the authority of 
Stapfer, Dr. Hodge asserts that this is the " true Calvin- 
istic doctrine." That is, as the clear meaning is, the 
intellect and the Will are sealed up with an equal neces- 
sitation ; the former by the evidence, the latter by the 
motive. Dr. Hodge, quoting another pas- Volitionsecured 
sage from Stapfer, interprets him as meaning aienTbJdem^ 
that the Holy Spirit, "though producing onstration - 
conviction, offers no more violence to the mind than a 
demonstration of a proposition in Geometry." It is 
thereby free not only m, but because of its uninfringed, 
unqualified necessitation. He quotes Owen as saying of 
God's work upon our minds, wills, and affections, that 
" as it is certainly effectual, so it carries no more repug- 
nancy to our faculties than a prevalent persuasion doth." 
That is, the Will is free, because unimpededly necessi- 
tated. So also he quotes Bates as saying of God's 
effectual operations, "we feel them in all our faculties 
congruously to their nature, enlightening their minds, ex- 
citing the conscience, turning the Will." From Free because 
all which it follows that the intellect is as free nature, 
in accepting a demonstration as the Will is free in obey- 
ing the motive ; the freedom in both cases consisting in 
the fact that there is no compulsion, coaction, or violence 
offered, but only securative causation resistlessly effectu- 
ating the work, excluding all power from the faculty of 
different action. Yet inasmuch as both faculties, intel- 

* Veritatem tarn clare mentibus ingerit, ut non possint non assentirl, 
et tanta motiva voluntati suggerit, ut non possit nolle. 



420 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

lect and Will, are caused to act, and do act, in a mode 
"congruous to their nature," both are perfectly free in 
the entire operation. They are free because necessary. 

A venerable Confession of Faith contains these remark- 
able words : "God from all eternity did, by the most wise 
and holy counsel of his own Will, freely and unchangeably 
ordain whatsoever comes to pass. Yet so as thereby nei- 
ther is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the 
Will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency 
of second causes taken away, but rather established." — 
Chap. 3. " God hath endued the Will of man with that 
natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor by any abso- 
lute necessity of nature determined, to do good or evil." 
— Chap. 9. These terms sound so much like an asser- 
tion of the doctrine of volitional liberty as against neces- 
sity, as to deceive such men as Wesley, Dugald Stuart, 
and Sir William Hamilton. " The theory of Jonathan 
Edwards," said Hamilton, "touching the bondage of the 
Will, is, on the Calvinistic standard of the Westminster 
Confession, not only heterodox but heretical." And yet 
so may words conceal their ideas and express their 
seeming reverse, that we may assert, on the highest 
Scotch Presbyterian authority, that these words actually 
deny the contradiction of philosophical necessity.* 

When in the Confession it is denied that "violence 
Freedom to be is done to the Will of the creature," the 

fixed by motive . , . _ tttmi • • i n 

unvioiated. meaning is that the Will is not violently 
prevented from choosing according to the highest mo- 
tive, as an undisturbed intellect is not violently prevent- 
ed from accepting a highest evidence, a demonstration. 
When it is said that the Will " is neither forced, nor by 
an absolute necessity of nature determined to good or 
evil," it is merely denied that any force or physical vio 
lence, compulsion or necessity, interrupts or deflects the 
free Will from obeying its law of necessitatively acting 
according to strongest motive. There is no violence or 
* British and Foreign Evangelical Review, January, 1858, Art. IX. 



Chap. 8.] BELIEF AND WILL. 421 

necessity crossing the law of necessity. And Nec e SS it yun . 
when it is denied that the " contingency of sec- crossed - 
ond causes" is " taken away," the meaning is, that whereas 
some causes are complete and necessary in themselves, and 
other causes dependent on co-operation of additional con- 
ditions, and so are contingent, God's foreordination does 
not change the nature of these causes so but that the 
necessary is still necessary and the contingent is still 
contingent. All of which means that the responsible 
Will is free to be controlled by the absolute natural ne- 
cessity of motive force; free to be necessitated, free 
because necessitated. So John Owen, in his book en- 
titled " Display of Arminiahism ; being a discovery of the 
old Pelagian idol Free Will, with the new goddess Con- 
tingency," says : " Yet here observe we do not absolutely 
oppose free Will, as if it were nomen inane, a mere fig- 
ment, when there is no such thing in the world, but only 
in that sense the Pelagians and Arminians do assert it. 
About words we will not contend. We grant man in 
the substance of his actions as much power, liberty, and 
freedom as a mere created nature is capable of.* We 
grant him to be free in his choice from all out- Free to obey 

t ^. . 7^7 •. . strongest mo- 

ward coaction, or inward natural necessity, to tive. 
work according to election and deliberation, spontane- 
ously embracing what seemeth good to TiimP " Endued 
we are with such a liberty of Will as is free from all 
outward compulsion and inward necessity, having an 
elective faculty of applying itself unto that which seems 
good unto it, in which is a free choice, notwithstanding 
it is subservient to the decree of God." — Vol. x, chap, xii, 
pp. 116, 119. Similar also was the doctrine of Calvin: 
" If liberty is opposed to coaction, (or force,) I confess, 
and constantly assert, that the Will is free, and I reckon 
him a heretic who thinks otherwise. If it is called free 
in this sense because it is not forced or violently drawn 

* That is, " as much freedom as a mere created nature is capable of" 
in his estimation. That is, he grants just as much freedom as he grants. 



422 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. (Tart in, 

by an external movement, but is led on sua sponte, I 
Freedom is ex- nave n0 objection to this. But because 
tSfe^eScq wifh nien in general, when they hear this epithet 
inaiternativity. applied to the wm of man? understand it in 

a very different sense; for this reason I dislike it." — 
De Libero arbitrio, p. 215. According to these extracts 
freedom is an exemption from all interference with the 
law of unipotence or inalternative necessitation. A free- 
dom it is to be purely necessitated. 

The non-freedom of this freedom will appear from a 
contemplation of the nature of the necessity of intellect, 
as appears, for instance, in the mental reception of a 
geometrical demonstration by intuition of the dia- 
gram shown, say, upon the blackboard. The figure, 
with its relations, is necessitatively what it is. The 
figure upon the sensorium, with the perceived rela- 
tions, is necessarily as the figure upon the blackboard. 
Geometrical r ^ ne perception must be as the figure upon the 
freedom. sensorium. But the volition in a given case 
being as necessitated as this perception, and the percep- 
tion as necessitated as the mathematical figure, the logical 
result is that the volitions are as free and as necessitated 
as the nature and intrinsic geometric relations of a math- 
ematical figure. The volition thereby is just as limited 
to be what it is as a circle is to be a circle. The 
entire totality of all volitions in all time and eternity, 
through all the earth and all the universe, are just as 
free as the inferential steps of a great mathematical 
demonstration, namely, to be just what they are and no 
otherwise. No individual volition can be otherwise 
than it is, any more than any step of a conclusive dem- 
onstration can be otherwise than it is. No agent can 
will otherwise than he does will, any more than a 
The totality of ^ Y ' mn S^ e can be a circle. "No step of a demon- 
eLTry a^the stration can help being what it is, so no agent 
mltricaf pro- can ne ^P willing as he wills ; and as the action 
is necessarily the result of the volition, so no 



Chap. 9.] COACTION AND NECESSITATION. 423 

agent can help doing what he does. Whether, therefore, 
he wills or does, if he be responsible at all, he is respons- 
ible/07' what he cannot help. 

All this demonstrates onr point. The freedom of the 
Will in volition and of the intellect in intellection is equal 
and the same. In spite of Dr. Chalmers, as the intellect 
cannot otherwise see, so the Will cannot otherwise look ; 
for the object fixes the one and the motive fixes the other. 
The troubled inquirer about the responsibility of neces- 
sitated bad beliefs should be peremptorily told that a 
bad belief, however necessitated, is in itself responsible ; 
for necessity is no bar to responsibility. 

But in very truth we are responsible for our beliefs, 
because we can help our bad beliefs by our Wills ; and 
we are under obligation to help our bad beliefs Pointdemon . 
by our Wills because our Wills are not neces- 8trated - 
sitated to leave our bad beliefs unchanged. Responsi- 
bility for belief therefore demonstrates the freedom 
of the Will. 



CHAPTER IX. 

COACTION AND NECESSITATION. 

Co action or compulsion is a forceful causation acting 
upon the body, securing a given act, though against the 
Will ; necessitation is a forceful causation acting upon 
the Will securing a given volitional act ; ac- Coaction and 
cordant with the Will because it makes the n ^essitation. 
Will accord with itself. In the former case the power 
of the body is nullified to perform any other than the 
given corporeal act ; in the latter the power of the soul 
is nullified to the putting forth any other than the given 
volitional act. In both cases the adequate power is ex- 



424 THE POSITIVE ABGUMENT STATED. [Part in, 

eluded from the agent ; in the former case from the body 
to effectuate the act of the soul ; in the latter case from 
the soul to effectuate the act of the body. In order to 
the final act in any case required, the conjoint power of 
both soul and body, of both Will and muscle, is necessary. 
The want of either excludes, and equally excludes, the 
act from the reach of the agent. If the power is, on ac- 
They equally count of strongest material obstacle, wanting 

exclude ^"^ ^~^. 

power. in the muscle, no capacity of Will amounts to 
the adequate power for the required act ; if the power is, 
on account of strongest motive obstacle, wanting in the 
Will, no capability of muscle amounts to the adequate 
power for that demanded deed. Whatever the required 
deed be, coaction by physical force or necessitation by 
motive influence places, and equally places, the act out 
of the power of the agent. The power of the agent, 
therefore, is equally at an end whether the obstacle be 
coaction or necessitation; whether it be by force of 
strongest material or of strongest motive. And if the 
required act be out of the agent's power, whether from 
coaction or necessitation, it is to him impossible. For 
this is the meaning of the word impossible/ that for 
Terms impos- which there is no adequate power. And it is 

sible and can- , - . , ~ ,~> -, 

not equally true that he cannot perioral the required act ; 

applicable to _ . . • i/» 

both. ±or that is the meaning of cannot; that tor 

which an agent has not the requisite power. 

Now power must underlie obligation. An act for 
which the agent has not the adequate power both voli- 
„ , tional and physical, cannot be the subject of 

Moral respons- . -. ^^ 

destoo e ed ua b y J ust obligation nor just command. Whether 
both. there be a want of power to act, through ma- 

terial obstacle, or a want of power to will, through mo- 
tive obstacle, from that want of power arises the exclu- 
sion of all possible obligation to the act, and all divine 
requirement. 

The necessitarian will put this case. Here is a man 
who ought to support his family by honest labor; 



Chap. 9.] COACTION AND NECESSITATION. 425 

but he is imprisoned and in chains. Does not Fallacioug 
that excuse him ? Yes. Then " natural? that *«**«*• 
is, corporeal, inability discharges obligation. But sup- 
pose he is fully at liberty, but has no will, disposition, or 
inclination; does that excuse him? No. Then morale 
that is, volitional, inability does not excuse. But, we 
reply, that "no" is given under assumption that the 
Will is non-necessitated and that necessitarianism is false. 
The true answer, then, to be substituted is this : " If 
necessitarianism is false, no; if necessitarianism is true, 
yes" No necessitarian has a right to utter that Armin- 
ian " no." 

Dr. Chalmers, in his Commentary on Romans v, 12-21, 
puts the case that " one may see a dagger pro- Cha i mera » s 
jected from behind a curtain in the firm grasp case * 
of a human hand and directed with sure and deadly aim 
against the bosom of an unconscious sleeper, and seeing 
no more he would infer of the individual who held this 
mortal weapon that he was an assassin and that he de- 
served the death of an assassin." All this undoubtedly 
the spectator would assume without analysis and in the 
gross. It would be no moment to institute a grave phil- 
osophical inquiry in what that moral agency consisted, 
but all the elements included in responsible agency would 
instantly and intuitively be assumed. And one of these 
assumptions of the intuition would be, underlying the 
judgment of moral responsibility and desert of divine 
penalty, that the volition for the act was performed in 
full power of willing or not willing the performance, and 
all attribution of moral responsibility would be at an end. 

Dr. Chalmers next supposes that a lifting of the cur- 
tain discloses a person behind the supposed as- „ . 

* . x r Chalmers a 

sassm grasping his hand and compelling him to 8 £ a po h sit s i f c ° 1 
infix the dagger into the bosom of the sleeper, com P ulsi °n. 
who is in fact his bosom friend. Common sense of course 
aflirms that the supposed assassin is no assassin, and is 
morally guiltless of the death of his friend. And 



426 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Partlll, 

upon what principle? Plainly upon the principle that 
where there is no adequate power of avoidance there 
can be no obligation to avoidance and no guilt for 
non-avoidance. For instead of the material curtain sup- 
our further pose that the psychological curtain which cov- 

supposition 1 ~ . . ~ 

in the case, ers the movements 01 mind were lifted up and 
it were seen that a controlling causation behind the 
man's Will propelled its springs and, excluding all con- 
trary power, enforced the volition which, through the 
a bound wm nan( ^ ^ rove the dagger into the sleeper's 
afm a equaiiy neart ? what then would the moral judgment 
excusable, ^ e ? Why should physical chains, binding the 
arm, any more excuse an act than a ligature, stronger than 
the iron chain, fastening the Will, excuse the volition ? 

" An act against the Will," says Dr. Chalmers, "indi- 
cates no demerit on the part of him who performed it. 
But an act with the Will gives us the full impression of 
demerit. The philosopher may amuse himself with that 
ulterior query: What was it that originated the Will? 
But the peasant has no metaphysics and no speculation 
for entertaining such a topic. And yet he has just as 
fresh and just as enlightened sense of a bad action, com- 
ing from a bad intention, as the most curious and con- 
templative inquirer." 

If," we reply, the "peasant" has just as fresh and en- 
The peasant lightened a sense of the demerit of a bad ac- 
unaersund 1 Hon coming from a bad intention as the philos- 
denies as ' opher himself, so he may have iust as clear and 

what he ad- r ' J J 

mits - quick a sense of the irresponsibility of a voli- 

tion coming from a necessitated Will. He may be no 
more able to discuss one than the other. But he may 
have just as clear an intuition of one as of the other. 
While he will fully admit that " an act against the Will 
indicates no demerit," he will also assume that a volition 
which there was no power of avoiding has no demerit, 
and affirm conversely that there ever is a power of avoid- 
ing the volition of which demerit can be affirmed. 



Chap. 10.] GOD'S NON-AUTHORSHIP OF SIN. 427 

CHAPTEE X. 

ARGUMENT FROM GOD'S NON-AUTHORSHIP OF SIN. 

The entire issue as to God's relation to sin between 
the freedomist and the necessitarian is this : 

The former maintains that while God foreknows that 
in a given course of the most wise divine con- Freedomistic 
duct a free agent will, with full power to do view * 
otherwise, bring sin into existence, he, nevertheless, 
neither destroys the agent nor prevents his sin, but pros- 
ecutes his own course of most perfect wisdom to the best 
result. This may be called the theory of non-preven- 
tion. 

The latter maintains that God, in view of the best 
possible results, to which the sin of the agent 

,,..,, . , Necessitarian. 

is an inseparable incident, necessitates the 
agent to sin, intentionally setting into efficient operation 
the train of causes by which his sinning is necessitatively 
secured. This is the theory of Necessitation. 

The charge against the latter view is that by main- 
taining that God — not merely non-prevents, but — neces- 
sitates sin, necessitarianism makes God to be "the 
author of sin." For to necessitate is not merely to per- 
mit, or not hinder or not prevent; it is to he the inaltern- 
ative securer and the intentional causer of sin. And to 
be the intentional causer of sin is to be the responsible 
author of sin. 

I. In regard to Edwards, we may here note the very 
remarkable fact that, although his whole work aggress- 
ively maintains necessitation, yet when he comes to this 
point he defends only the theory of non-prevention ! He 
seems to forget to which side he belongs, and quietly 
exculpates his opponents, the non-preventionists, from 
charging God with the authorship of sin. He makes two 
suppositions, as follows : 



428 THE POSITIVE AKGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

1. "If," says he, "by the author of sin be meant the 
sinner, the agent, the actor of sin, or the doer of a 
wicked thing, then — " No matter what "then." For 
that is an imaginary " if." The real question is, Suppose 
by "author" is meant necessitator of sin, the necessi- 
tator of all sin, the necessitator of the sinner to be the 
"sinner," "the actor," "the doer;" what then is the 
answer of Edwards ? Nothing. 

2. "If," says he, "by the author of sin is meant the 
permitter, or not hinderer of sin, and at the same time a 
disposer of the state of events in such a manner . . . 
that sin, if it be permitted or not hindered, will most cer- 
tainly follow," then God is no author of sin. That is, 
the non-prevention theory — the theory of his opponents — 
does not make God the author of sin. This is a gen- 
erous exculpation of us Arminians ! But what does 
Edwards say in defense of his own theory, namely, of 
Necessitation ? Nothing. He simply defends the posi- 
tion of his opponents, and leaves his own system defense- 
less and naked to its enemies. He has demonstrated 
Calvinism ; he now defends only Arminianism. 

It is not merely permission, not-hindering, non-anni- 
hilation, non-prevention, privative non-interference, nor 
the so arranging that sin, if not prevented, will take 
place, that Necessitarianism teaches. It teaches that 
God is the necessitative first cause, through a straight 
inevitable line of necessitating second causes, of the 
man's existence, and of his every act, and of his final 
damnation for that being and act. Necessitated to be 
what he is, to do what he does, of that necessitation 
God is the original necessitator, the necessitator who not 
only negatively precludes any different results from any 
possible existence, but positively necessitates that sole 
result to come into existence. That is, God necessitates 
his existence, his nature, his sin, and his damnation for 
that necessitated nature and sin. Man Has no adequate 
ability for different existence, choice, act, or destiny. 



Chap. 10.] GOD'S NON-AUTHORSHIP OF SIN. 429 

In the question of responsibility for an intended effect, 
be it here noted, it makes no difference Nomat terhow 
through how many intermediate necessary lon s theseri es. 
causes the causation has to pass from the first cause to 
the last effect. No matter how long the series of 
mediate necessitative causes, or how many the terms in 
the series, the first intentional causer is the responsible 
author of the final intended effect. If the necessary 
mediate causes are billions of billions, the intentional 
causer is as truly the responsible author of the effect at 
the far end as if it were an immediate voluntary act or 
a simple volition. The whole series is responsibly one 
act; the final effect is the one act. The right First cause 

t n, . , , , , , , cause of last 

line of causation shoots through the whole effect, 
series, and binds the first cause to a responsibility for the 
last effect. 

Suppose a boy upon a high scaffold intentionally so 
arranges a number of standing bricks in a row, that 
when he pushes down the first, that shall push down 
the second, and the second the third, and so on, so that 
the last brick, according to his purpose, shall fall upon 
the head of a sleeping man, and fulfill his intention of 
murdering him. Would the act be less guilty or the 
boy less responsible than if he had crushed the man 
with a single brick, or assassinated him with a dagger, or 
willed him to an actual death by a volition ? Or if the 
bricks were a small number, would the increase of them 
by a score, a hundred, or a thousand, diminish the 
responsibility ? 

It would be no moral exculpation of this boy to say 
that he merely " so disposed " the bricks that the murder, 
" if it be permitted or not hindered, will most gerial causa 
certainly and infallibly follow." The state- ££e is P n e°r- 
ment would be false, for he did more than mission - 
this. He necessitated, inalternatively caused the brick 
to fall; and so he was author of the murder — the 
murderer. The causative force from his finger ran in 



430 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

a right line through all the bricks and murdered the 
man. The intention of the act ran through all the bricks 
and achieved the crime. He had excluded from each 
and every brick the adequate power or possibility for 
any other effect. Mere permission and neeessitation are 
thus very different things in the question of responsible 
authorship. 

Should the superintendent of an Atlantic telegraphic 
cable intentionally so manipulate as to transmit to 
another continent a malignant falsehood, the wickedness 
of the deed would not be diminished by the length of 
the cable. No matter through how many inches or 
particles of matter the lie has to pass, its guilt is as 
if the whole were done by nothing but a lying volition 
and a lying tongue. Every human act of overt sin 
passes through countless particles of matter. If a man 
be murderously shot, the action starting from the voli- 
tion passes through the material particles of the brain, the 
nerves, the fingers, the gun, the trigger, the explosion, 
the bullet, and the victim's body. Yet through all the 
necessitative series, the intentional causer of the first 
movement is responsible author of the last effect. 

It would be no excuse for the telegraph operator to 
L say that he was only " the permitter, or not 

Causer is not ■ rf J x 

Sftter P or tne nm( ^ erer °f sin," (Edwards on the Will, 

nothinderer. p 35^ t fc at J^ Q f t ^ e g^. u an( J at ^ game 

time a disposer of the state of events, in such a manner, 
for wise, holy, and most excellent ends and purposes, 
that sin, if it be permitted and not hindered, will most cer- 
tainly and infallibly follow." To send the lie for " wise 
and hqlj ends," would be the true Jesuitical morality of 
" doing evil that good may come," of lying for the glory 
of God. To say that he was merely "the permitter or 
not hinderer " of the lie is itself a lie. 

The first cause is the responsible cause of the last ef- 
fect. If the first cause is a living being, he is not only 
the cause but he is the causer ; and if he intended that 



Chap. 10.] GOD'S NON-AUTHORSHIP OF SIN. 431 

the last effect should exist, then he is the intentional 
causer that the last effect should exist. And if this first 
intentional causer be a supposed God, and the last effect 
be sin, the supposed God is the intentional causer of that 
sin. But surely the intentional causer of a thing is 
author of that thing. God then, according to necessita- 
rianism, we charge, is the responsible author of sin. 

And by the same doctrine it is further true that God 
is as truly the author of sin as if the sin were , x , , 

J As truly its 

his own immediate intentional act. God is gy^mmldl- 
hereby the responsible author of the final effect ate act - 
as truly as if it were his own act, or his own simple voli- 
tion. From the Will of God to the act of the sinner 
the line of causation through all the intermediates is a 
straight line. And to all the purposes of just responsi- 
bility it is a short line — a point. 

II. Edwards next proceeds to the Scripture Argument. 
He adduces the cases of Pharaoh, of Joseph's His Scripture 
brethren, of the king of Assyria, of Nebuchad- ar ? ument - 
nezzar, and of the crucifiers of Christ to prove — it is not 
very clear what. These passages, it is at present suffi- 
cient to say, have terms of causation that seem to ascribe 
the authorship of sin to God. These passages either 
prove God's necessitation of sin, or his mere permission 
or non-prevention. By Edwards's own argument they 
cannot mean the former ; for he asserts there is nothing 
but mere permission. If there be nothing but mere per- 
mission, then they make nothing against Ar- proves too 

. . . TT - . , . much or too 

mmianism. He quotes but does not analyze little, 
them on this point ; very much as if he meant, non-com- 
mittally, to have a causation, and a necessitation of sin, 
by the reader inferred, which he thought not best explic- 
itly himself to express.' 

III. Edwards next defends a necessitating God from 
the responsibility for sin by the distinction between posi- 
tive and privative causations. The sun by his direct ray 
is the positive cause, and, so to speak, the responsible 



432 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part in, 

author of day. But he is the author of night with her 
God mere priy. darkness, damps, and monsters by privation; 
sin? that is, simply by the withdrawment of his 

light, and so not the responsible author. So God is not 
the direct and positive, but only the privative and so the 
irresponsible cause of sin. 

But, we reply, necessity makes God the positive and 
not merely the negative cause of sin. God according to 
Positive neces- necessity positively sets all the first causes 
sitative cause. an( ^ ma t e rials in existence and action; just as 
the boy arranges the bricks and throws down the first, 
which throws down all to the last. The first start given 
secures the whole, excluding all but the given result. 
The line of causation from God's finger streaks through 
all second causes and secures the result. Sin is an act 
directly necessitated, and so not by privative but positive 
causation. 

We reply, second, that necessity makes God positively 
cause the privative defectus, which demands the supply 
Cause of the °^ reme( ly. The sun does not create the ante- 
defectus. cedents, causes, or circumstances which posi- 
tively produce the defectus, night. God necessitatively 
creates all the anterior positivities, all the conditions 
which necessitate the existence of the resultant privation. 
The very privative thereby becomes positive. Thereby 
a strict truth is found in Whitby's maxim, " Causa deficiens 
in rebus necessarik, ad causam per se efficientem redu- 
cenda est — In things necessary the deficient cause must be 
reduced to the efficient." Where the defectus is the re- 
sult of necessary causes, the withdrawment or withhold- 
ing the reparative of the defectus, especially by the author 
of all the anterior causalities, is equivalent to positive 
causation of the defectus and of all its necessary conse- 
quences. Privation is as positive a cause as impulsion : 
a caused darkness blinds as truly and as responsibly as 
lignt gives vision. 

IV. But it is said further by Edwards, "Men do will 



Chap. 10.] GOD'S NON-AUTHORSHIP OF SIN. 433 

sin as sin, and so are the authors and actors of it ;" 
" God does not will sin as six, or for the sake of any- 
thing evilP To this we reply, 

1. None but the most depraved among men and the 
devils do will " sin as sin," that is, for the sake XT .,, . 

7 ' Men vnll^ sin 

of sinning. Men have no specific appetite for not °* sin - 
sin as such. The great majority of sins are committed 
not because they are sin, but for the sake of some " ap- 
parent greatest good" seen in the act or object, and in 
spite or disregard of their being sin. Sin is anomia, law- 
lessness, that is, disregard of law. That is, sin, as an act, 
is an act performed to gratify some particular propensity 
in spite -or in disregard of the forbidding moral rule. 
Hence it is a transgression or overpassing of the bound- 
ary line of law and right. A deeper depravity Except by 

. * deeper de- 

may indeed develop itself in the form of sin as pravity. 
sin, and for the sake of sin. This would seem to be the ele- 
ment of the devils, who hate God's law because it is his 
law, and trample upon it for their direct hatred of it. 
This direct and conscious sin against God stands liable 
to Edwards's famous argument to prove the infinite de- 
merit of sin from its measurement as an offense against 
an Infinite Being. 

2. But by Edwards's argument, God does will and 
necessitate " sin as sin." God necessitates sin D ivinewiuing 
as being what it is. Its sinfulness, its malig- ofsin <w*^. 
nity, its blackness, its depravity of source in the disposi- 
tions, its atrocity of external act, all are necessitated by 
him. As the sinner wills it, so the necessitarian deity 
wills it. As the finite sins it so this Infinite sins it. God 
necessitates, wills, decrees, foreordains whatsoever comes 
to pass ; the sinfulness of sin, sin as sin, comes to pass ; 
God, therefore, necessitates, wills, decrees, foreordains 
the sinfulness of sin, sin as sin. 

3. It is relevant to our argument, as will soon appear, 
to add, that for the sin thus willed by God and unjustpenai. 
necessitated upon the sinner, eternal death is ty * 

28 



434 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

affixed as a penalty by the same divine Ruler. But just 
penalty for an unavoidable act is impossible. It is as 
impossible even to omnipotence as a contradiction. It is 
a non-compliance with absolute conditions of justice.* 
The double wrong is hereby ascribed to the Deity by 
necessity of securing the sinfulness of the sin and secur- 
ing infliction that can never be just penalty. 

V. But God "wills sin," Edwards adds, and necessi- 
tates it in the sinner, not for its own sake, " but for the 
sin for sake sake of the great- good that by his disposal 
quent good, shall be the consequence." To this Edwards 
very justly anticipates the reply that, "All that these 
things amount to is that God may do evil that good may 
come? If God may truly necessitate sin in the sinner, 
necessitate the sinfulness and guilt of that sin, and then 
necessitate an endless hell for the necessitated sin, all for 
some good and glorious end, then the maxim of the sons 
of Loyola, that the end sanctifies the means, is a funda- 
mental maxim of the divine administration. God is then 
admitted to be the Author of Sin, and he is justified in 
being the Author of Sin. The fact is granted and ex- 
cused. In order to make a beneficial crime holy, the 
method is, (as is well quoted by Professor Bledsoe from 
Pascal,) "simply taking off their intention from the sin 
itself 'and fixing it on the advantage to be gained." Ed- 
wards makes the supposed divine necessitation of sin, 
Transfer of S n ^ an( ^ damnation all right and holy, by 
intention. s i m pi v taking the divine intention from them 
and placing it on the good result to be obtained. If this 
be the divine morality why not the human ? 

4. But is it possible that good can be imagined to result 

consequent good from such a course? Can any glorious re- 
unsupposabie. gult poss i b i y be SU pp sed to result from a 

divine necessitation of sin, a necessitation of guilt, an 
unjust necessitation of hell? Can the holiness of the 
universe be attained through such an unholiness ? Cau 

* See p. 388. 



Chap. 10.] GOD'S NON-AUTHORSHIP OF SIX. 435 

the blessedness of heaven be genuine at such a price ? 
Can a holy being generously, wisely, holily accept heaven 
on such a condition? Can there be a heaven? But 
the thought is too awful to be traced to its ultimate 
bearings. 

VI. But Edwards has his reply : " For God to dispose 
and permit evil, [he should say cause, necessitate, predes- 
tinate, and will sin,] in the manner that has been spoken 
of, is not to do evil that good may come, for it is not to 
do evil at all." Certainly it is " to do evil ;" unless the 
goodness of the result changes the "do evil" and makes 
it good. But the doctrine that the " do evil" Good result 

'' , -. , , . .. -, ,,. cannot make 

is made good by what " good may come, is eviigood. 
the very pith and infamy of the Jesuit maxim. That 
maxim stands in opposition to the true doctrine that in- 
trinsic evil cannot by any result be transmuted into good. 

In his defense, Edwards finally argues, that for God's 
supposed conduct herein to be evil "there 
must be one of three things belonging to it : 
either it must be a thing unfit and unsuitable in its own 
nature ; or it must have a bad tendency ; or it must pro- 
ceed from an evil disposition, and be done for an evil end." 
He denies all three of the conduct he ascribes to God. 

We affirm all three. We affirm them for the following 
reasons: First. The necessitating and willing 1<Unfitinit3 
wickedness, and causing it to be willed and own nature - 
done, is " unfit and unsuitable in its own nature." To 
so necessitate it that it cannot but be done, annihilating 
all adequate power to do right instead, is very " unfit and 
unsuitable in its own nature." To necessitate an eternal 
misery in hell, as the necessary consequence of necessi- 
tated sin, is horribly "unfit and unsuitable in its own 
nature." To do all this under the pretense of holiness, 
justice, and righteousness, is, finally, " unfit and unsuita- 
ble in its own nature." And being thus intrinsically 
and essentially evil, "evil in its own nature," it is un- 
changeably " evil," and no ulterior ends can justify or 



436 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Part III, 

transmute it into holiness and right. Second. It must 
2 Bad in have a ^ ac ^ tendency. For what were the in- 
tendency. trinsic tendency, imagine, of an unholy God 
over the universe ? If a deity is guilty of falsehood and 
cruel wrong, who can rely on his pretenses, especially 
upon his pretenses that all this, forsooth, will be made to 
result for the best ? But we turn from the horrible phan- 
tasm presented by this necessitarian theory to our view. 
3. From evil Third. It must proceed from an evil disposi- 
intention. ^ 0Ylt YoY surely the very intention to commit 
intrinsic wickedness, that good may come, is "an evil 
disposition." But let us close our view of these most 
wretched arguments. Where in all standard Protestant 
theology shall we find a chapter more replete with the 
logic of a sophist and the ethics of a Jesuit? 

If God be holy, he cannot consistently with that char- 
Point of dem- acter necessitate sin ; but God is holy ; sin is 
onstration. therefore unnecessitated. Holiness in God 
demonstrates freedom in man. If God is holy, man is 
free. 



CHAPTER XI. 

FREEDOM THE CONDITION OF A POSSIBLE THEODICE. 

Of our various argument as a whole, the summary 
conclusion is that necessitarianism attains but an Autom- 
atism, and not a just divine retributive Government. It 
is incapable of framing a Theodice. The necessary con- 
dition to the possible existence of a true Divine Gov- 
ernment is the Volitional feeedom, both of the infinite 
and the finite Person. 

1. Necessity furnishes, as has been shown, but an 
Automatic automatic Deity. Of nothing is he capable 
creator. ^ ut j ust w ba,t he foes, volitionally and there- 



Chap. 11.] FREEDOM THE CONDITION OF THEODICE. 437 

fore extravolitionally. His effects are the intrinsic measure 
of the causation in his nature and being. 

2. Man, being an automatic creature, is, as we have 
shown, no possible subject of command, of de- Automatic 
sert, of blame or praise, of reward or penalty, creature. 
and so not of Government. As God is an infinite and 
man a finite, so both combined are a composite single 
automatism. 

3. A universal created system of volitions, automat- 
ically resultant from inalternative particular causations, 
can constitute no just retributive system. Or Automatic voli . 
if this organic system of volitions is not an tional s y stem - 
intrinsically caused system; if without the impact of 
cause the action of all Wills, actual or possible, move by 
an intrinsic spontaneity, by a law precisely coinciding 
with the Law of Causality, the Universe is still an 
Automatism. The one is an orrery that whether causa- 
moves by a force from without; the other taneous. 

is an orrery that moves in the same orbit by an intrinsic 
force, both by an equally necessitative Law. One is an 
automatism performing its actions from an external, the 
other from an internal impulse ; but both with an equal 
fixedness by the same anterior and formulable programme, 
and to the same result. Of no such constituents can even 
a Deity construct a Divine Government. For how can 
the Deity impose laws upon a system of beings whose 
actions are already fixed by the Law either of causation 
or of a spontaneity coinciding with causation ? Either 
his law must coincide with those laws ; and then those 
Laws are the law of his law, so that his law is no law at 
all, and he is rather ruled than Ruler; or his Law must 
cross those laws, and thus most unjustly sub- ciashof 
ject its subjects to conflicting jurisdictions, one Laws * 
of which they must obey, and yet be punished for diso- 
bedience to the other. 

In order that God may be a just Sovereign, his law 
must be the expression of Rectitude ; and his subjects 



438 THE POSITIVE ARGUMENT STATED. [Tart III. 

must, uncircurnscribed by laws of causation or invaria- 
bility, be able to coincide with it. In order for him to 
be a just retributive Sovereign, prepared to administer 
reward or penalty, they must possess power to coin- 
cide or the reverse — a power uncontradicted alike by a 
universal Causation or an equally universal Spontaneity. 

4. Retribution and automatism are incompatible in a 
Automatism moral system. Pain may be affixed as a sequent 

versus ret- pit.* -i i • i •» 

ribution. oi bad action, and happiness as the sequent of 
good action. But if by necessitative law the action be 
as truly affixed to the agent as these sequents to the act, 
pain and happiness are consequences, but they are not 
ethically deserved reward and penalty. As expedients 
they may by motivity prevent evil action, as cause pro- 
duces effect. But the whole operation and the whole- 
system is then mechanical, not retributive. 

5. The moral intuition of justice is either unsatisfied, 
or false and meaningless. Of all the above regulative 
expedients, by which pain is applied to the prevention of 
crime, the retributive sentiment knows nothing. What 
Expediency tn e mora l sense demands and identifies is pure 
versus justice, absolute justice ; and if the system of the uni- 
verse be automatic in distinction from alternative, such 
pure justice has no existence. 

From all this, there results the Conclusion that with- 
out free volition there can be no justice, no satisfying the 
moral sense, no retributive system, no moral Govern- 
Point of dem- ment 5 of which the creature can be the right- 
onstration. ^ Bn ty ec ^ or Q & the righteous Administra- 
tor. The existence of a system, and the existence in the 
soul of man of a demand for a system combining these 
elements, demonstrate the reality of Volitional Freedom. 
Either there is no Divine Government, or man is a non- 
necessitated moral Agent. 



THE END. 



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